What is NOTHING?
What is NOTHING ( N )?
Definitions:
1. Google: not anything
2. Merriam-Webster: nonexistence
Do the two definitions concur?
There are only two worlds that I know of:
1. Mental world (M)
2. Physical world (P)
Since we regularly speak of thoughts, ideas as things, it's reasonable to say that thoughts exist in, at least, M. If we don't take it this way, and say that thoughts don't exist, then N would include thoughts and ideas - this doesn't agree with the general idea of what we mean by N. So, N is neither mental nor physical. It can't be a thought and neither is it a physical object.
Is space (S) N? Usually, the meaning of N is conveyed by pointing to an empty spot in space. So, is S = N? Well, N, being nonexistence shouldn't have any properties. But, S does have properties. S can be measured - its volume can be calculated. S has properties but N doesn't. So, S isn't N. It's a good analogy though and that's why people usually use it to express the meaning of N.
Some say N is a concept. But, concepts exist in M but, as shown by its definition, N can't exist in M. So, N is not a concept, although, we do have a concept of N.
Therefore, the two general responses to ''what is N?'' viz
1. N is empty space
2. N is a concept
are just an analogy or plain wrong.
Something else:
N, being nonexistence, shouldn't have properties. If we divide possible properties into two - qualitative and quantitative - then it's quite obvious N can't have qualitative properties like color, shape, texture, sound, etc. but, surprisingly, N is, quantitatively, zero. In other words, N has the quantitative property of zero - there's no thing in N i.e. the number of things in N is zero.
Another thing:
N forms boundaries. For instance, what is both a cat and a dog? Nothing! This forms a clear cut boundary between the categories cat and dog.
The usefulness of N in forming well delineated boundaries is made clear by situations where this isn't possible. For instance, vague categories (e.g. tall and short) lead to a lot of confusion and makes thinking difficult. We could say, in some sense, that N is useful.
Even for a single category, N sets limits to its domain. ''Nothing is taller than mount everest'' demarcates the boundary of the category mountains. In a very general sense, a finite world is bound between superlatives (smallest-largest, richest-poorest, etc.) by N. Here again, N allows us to make sense of our world.
In what other way can we make sense of N?
What other properties of N are there?
Definitions:
1. Google: not anything
2. Merriam-Webster: nonexistence
Do the two definitions concur?
There are only two worlds that I know of:
1. Mental world (M)
2. Physical world (P)
Since we regularly speak of thoughts, ideas as things, it's reasonable to say that thoughts exist in, at least, M. If we don't take it this way, and say that thoughts don't exist, then N would include thoughts and ideas - this doesn't agree with the general idea of what we mean by N. So, N is neither mental nor physical. It can't be a thought and neither is it a physical object.
Is space (S) N? Usually, the meaning of N is conveyed by pointing to an empty spot in space. So, is S = N? Well, N, being nonexistence shouldn't have any properties. But, S does have properties. S can be measured - its volume can be calculated. S has properties but N doesn't. So, S isn't N. It's a good analogy though and that's why people usually use it to express the meaning of N.
Some say N is a concept. But, concepts exist in M but, as shown by its definition, N can't exist in M. So, N is not a concept, although, we do have a concept of N.
Therefore, the two general responses to ''what is N?'' viz
1. N is empty space
2. N is a concept
are just an analogy or plain wrong.
Something else:
N, being nonexistence, shouldn't have properties. If we divide possible properties into two - qualitative and quantitative - then it's quite obvious N can't have qualitative properties like color, shape, texture, sound, etc. but, surprisingly, N is, quantitatively, zero. In other words, N has the quantitative property of zero - there's no thing in N i.e. the number of things in N is zero.
Another thing:
N forms boundaries. For instance, what is both a cat and a dog? Nothing! This forms a clear cut boundary between the categories cat and dog.
The usefulness of N in forming well delineated boundaries is made clear by situations where this isn't possible. For instance, vague categories (e.g. tall and short) lead to a lot of confusion and makes thinking difficult. We could say, in some sense, that N is useful.
Even for a single category, N sets limits to its domain. ''Nothing is taller than mount everest'' demarcates the boundary of the category mountains. In a very general sense, a finite world is bound between superlatives (smallest-largest, richest-poorest, etc.) by N. Here again, N allows us to make sense of our world.
In what other way can we make sense of N?
What other properties of N are there?
Comments (279)
Why would nothing have properties? What kind of ontology are you situating nothing in?
This is an interesting question. Just off the top of my head, based on your reasoning, it would seem that no thing belongs to sets. The set is the set of things. As you point out, it forms the boundary of the set (which can be formulated as a rule) and a value of zero.
Does it have directionality I wonder? Infinite sets can ben infinite in one direction and limited in another. Can you think of a case where this may apply for no thing as well?
When we talk of properties of physical objects, we consider their quantitative aspect too. We say ''5 bananas'', ''2 cars'', etc. These numbers, as relates to objects, are the quantitative properties of things.
Similarly, when we quantify NOTHING, we do so with the number zero. Zero is the quantitative property of NOTHING just like 5 is the quantitative property of your right/left hand.
Ontological basis? NOTHING is nonexistence. Yet, paradoxically, it has a quantitative property.
Quoting MikeL
Well, it's quite difficult to work with something which, by definition, is nonexistence. As for the infinite, NOTHING is still relevant to it. What is the largest possibe number? The answer: NOTHING!
Heidegger had a lot to say on this topic. Currently I am only really familiar with Being and Time and haven't yet read What is Metaphysics? where he explicitly discusses the nothing, but I intend to do so in the near future.
It's a very interesting topic. I'm not so sure that zero is the quantitative property of nothing. I think my issue with some of your interesting suggestions above is that (regarding zero) you're putting the cart before the horse so to speak. To reverse your reasoning, zero has a quantitative property due to it's having numerical meaning/significance. The same is true of all numbers, they all have quantitative properties. Having said that, it seems obvious to me that this property has nothing to do with the nothing. In other words, it is not the case that the nothing has the quantitative property of zero, zero is rather a numerical manifestation of the nothing. And there are various other interesting manifestations of the nothing besides, some of which you mention above.
Does this make sense? It's a great topic! All I'm basically saying is that nothing is primordial, and more primordial than zero, which in turn is only a representation/manifestation of nothing/the nothing or what ever you want to call it. In other words, I am denying that quantity is ontologically primordial. From what I've picked up over the years, Heidegger is saying exactly this, that the nothing is ontologically basic.
Quoting TheMadFool
The above contradicts with the following:
Quoting bloodninja
From what I've read, zero is the solution to x - x where x is a number. Before zero, the answer to x - x would be nothing. So, nothing is, as you said, primordial to zero. Is N = zero?
No, because:
What is the solution of x + 1 = x? There is no numerical value for x (not even zero) that'll satisfy the above equation. The normal response to the above question is nothing.
However, in set theory, we could say that the set that contains the solutions to x + 1 = x is the empty set, { }. Now how many elements does { } contain? Zero.
So, N is not zero but zero is a property of N.
Quoting StreetlightX
What isn't?
I would like to politely disagree with this claim. There is a third world. The world of significance, of involved coping activity, in a word, of circumspection. Circumspection cannot plausibly be described as merely mental nor merely physical. Nor as the combination of both. It is in fact phenomenally and ontologically prior to both, and has it's own conditions of possibility, one of which is the nothing. In order of primordiality:
1. World of significance (W)
2. Mental world (M)
3. Physical world (P)
The intelligibility of M and P are derived from W. N cannot be made ontologically intelligible without W.
I had to break up reality into two worlds because there are things that are exclusive to each. Thoughts are immaterial. They don't have mass and nor do they occupy space. For me, that requires division of reality into two worlds - physical and mental.
Your third world - circumspection - is unwarranted because everything in it resides in the mental world. This makes it redundant, at least for the meaning of nothing.
But ìt doesn't reside in the mental world. That is the point. I think you are being a little dogmatic here.
Something neither mental nor physical? That seems impossible. Can you clarify.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes. “Not anything” means the absence of all things that could exist. (And also, to be exhaustive, of all things that could not exist, but of course they are absent by necessity.) “Nonexistence” means nothing existing. They mean the same. And they are both correct.
Only things that could exist could instantiate properties (if and when they exist), so if all things that could exist are absent, no properties can be instantiated. So nothing cannot have properties. If we think we have found a property of nothing, we have gone wrong somewhere. Probably what has happened is that we have chosen words to describe a state of affairs that misdescribe it; there will always be a way of describing the state of affairs in which the supposed property of nothing disappears.
Quoting TheMadFool
No indeed. Being mental or physical are ways of existing, and as such are arguably not properties (since existence is generally held not to be a property). Nevertheless, only something that could exist could exist in a certain way, and so nothing, which is the absence of all things that could exist, could not exist in any way at all, and so cannot be either mental or physical.
Quoting TheMadFool
Agreed.
Quoting TheMadFool
Zero is not a property. Rather, it is an alternative to saying ‘nothing’, e.g.:
How many objects are in the box? Zero.
What is in the box? Nothing.
Quoting TheMadFool
In this and the remarks that follow it, you are actually talking about the concept of N, not about N. If we say ‘Nothing is both a cat and a dog’, we are using the concept of nothing to express the fact that in our domain of discourse, everything is either wholly cat or wholly dog. So insofar as there is a property of usefulness here, it is the concept of N that has the property, not N itself.
Quoting TheMadFool
Numbers are not properties of things, at any rate not in the way you suggest. The property your hand possesses is not fiveness, but five-fingeredness. Similarly, in a bunch of 5 bananas, the bunch itself does not possess the property of fiveness, but the property of five-banananess. As for each individual finger or banana, insofar as it possesses any quantitative or numerical property, it possesses the property of oneness; and it seems to true but trivial that all objects whatsoever must exhibit this property.
To give a simple example. A hammer is neither a physical phenomenon nor a mental phenomenon. Sure it is made from physical stuff but it's being as equipment, in other worlds its intelligibility, is only possible upon a background of shared practices. This background is neither mental nor physical. To reduce it to either would be to completely misunderstand the phenomenon.
We may, however, approach it negatively, in fact it's defined negatively - as what it isn't. The only property NOTHING has is zero, a quantiative property.
Quoting Jeremiah
Zero is the number that describes NOTHING - an absence of a thing.
Are you saying NOTHING is a waste of time? Why?
Agreed.
Quoting Herg
Ok...somewhat...
Quoting Herg
So, there's no such thing as a quantitative property. Humans walking on 2 legs and dogs on 4 don't assist in distinguishing the two?
Quoting bloodninja
By that reasoning, a hammer is NOTHING.
Certainly there are quantitative properties. A 2-legged man has the quantitative property of having 2 legs, while a legless man has the quantitative property of having zero legs. But the number itself, 0 or 2, is not the property; the property is not 0 or 2, it is having 0 legs or having 2 legs. Numbers themselves are not properties.
A hammer is a physical object. The fact that we think of a hammer as a tool has no effect on the hammer, it’s a physical object whether we think of it that way or not. If all the humans in the world suddenly vanished, so that there was no-one who could think of a hammer as being a hammer, the hammer itself would be completely unchanged. Our thoughts about objects and our uses of objects do not make the objects anything other than what they are. What you call the hammer’s “intelligibility” is not part of the hammer, it is part of our thinking of and use of the hammer.
The material stuff the hammer is made out of would be unchanged, I don't disagree with that. However there would be no hammer. Because hammer-ness, as such, depends on humans existingly making hammers intelligible; not by thinking, but by using, and using in order to fulfill appropriate tasks in appropriate ways.
If aliens visited earth and took a hammer from our culture home with them as a souvenir. Would the thing be a hammer to them? Not if they had a hammer-less culture that lacked the cultural background of significance that makes hammers as equipment possible (e.g. carpenters, houses, timber, nails etc etc). No matter how hard they thought about the thing, it would not be a hammer because the intelligibility of hammers, hammer-ness, depends on use not on thought.
Quoting TheMadFool
This sound absurd doesn't it, that a hammer is NOTHING. So either there is something wrong with my argument or there is something wrong with your ontology of the mental and the physical. I don't think there is anything wrong with my argument. It's not actually my argument, but Martin Heidegger's argument in Being and Time. I would kindly suggest that your ontology needs to be either displaced or supplemented.
If we don't perceive, then there is nothing.
When we are unconscious, there is nothing.
Since you prefer ‘using‘ to ‘thinking of’, I will rephrase, though it makes no significant difference.
‘There would be no hammer’ is badly phrased. It sounds as if the object has ceased to exist, but that is not so; all that has happened is that no-one is now using the object as a hammer. Rather than saying ‘there would be no hammer’, therefore, you should say ‘no-one would be using this object as a hammer’.
Let’s get technical. The object that we use as a hammer is physical, and being physical is an intrinsic property of the object, i.e. a property that the object has in and of itself. Being used as a hammer, by contrast, is an extrinsic property, i.e. a property arising from the object’s interaction with the rest of the world (or some part of it). This extrinsic property consists in a relation in which the object stands to ourselves (the relation of being used by us as a hammer). When I said ‘the hammer itself would be completely unchanged’, I meant in respect of its intrinsic properties, including the property of being physical. Only its extrinsic properties would have changed.
It may be an intrinsic property of the object, but not of the hammer. The hammer is not an object, it is equipment. As such it belongs to a different ontological order than the subject/object (or mental/physical) ontology that this discussion has been grounded in.
What determines the hammer as a hammer is the background contextual significance of equipmental relationships within the world. What you are calling the hammer’s extrinsic properties (when looked at as a deworlded thing, i.e. not as a hammer) are in fact its primordial, background relationships and uses as equipment and as a hammer.
I built a fence last summer. When I needed to nail a pailing on the rails I didn't have to look for a physical object that resembled the intrinsic properties of a hammer and then mysteriously project mental thoughts onto it about the extrinsic ways I could use the physical object to get the job done. I never once explicitly though about the hammer, only about the task to be done. This is because we are primordially in the world encountering equipment as equipment and only later experience ourselves as deworlded subjects abstractly thinking about objects and properties and whether hammers exist and what nothing is.
I like finding the essence of things, even when the thing in question is nothing. Also I agree that 'nothing' is synonymous with 'zero'. Here is why.
What is the essence of 0? We know the essence of 3 is "III", 2 is "II", 1 is "I", therefore the essence of 0 is " ".
What is the essence of nothing? That which has no properties. In other words, " ".
Therefore the essences of 'nothing' and 'zero' coincide.
It’s both. The fact that it’s used as equipment does not prevent it being an object. If it were not an object, my dog could not sniff it, pick it up in his mouth, or anything else he might do with it. The hammer is not equipment as far as my dog is concerned, so if it were only equipment and not an object, he would not be able to interact with it at all, which clearly he can.
Quoting bloodninja
Disagree. The ontological order of a thing is the kind of existence we understand it to have, and the kind of existence we (most of us, anyway!) understand the hammer to have is as a physical object. The use of an object (e.g. as a hammer) is not an ontic or even ontological property; it’s an epistemic property – the hammer’s being a hammer is a matter of us knowing that it is a hammer (or, more correctly, knowing of it as a hammer), not of its being in itself a hammer.
Quoting bloodninja
Both are true. Extrinsic properties are a general type of properties, and use as equipment is a subtype within that general type.
Quoting bloodninja
At no point have I suggested that we have to look for an object with certain intrinsic properties before we use it. Actually it’s the reverse; we look for an object with a certain extrinsic property – something with some such property as ‘usable for hammering things in with’ – and only sometimes do we then notice its intrinsic properties: for example, the hammer may have a loose head (intrinsic); but even then we would be more interested in the extrinsic properties than the intrinsic (is it too loose to do its job? – extrinsic). Nor am I suggesting that in using a hammer we need to EXPLICITLY or ABSTRACTLY think about the hammer; we just need to think about it enough to select it for the job of hammering.
If you unmuddy your conceptions of ontology and metaphysics and see ontology as a theoretical articulation of our understanding of being, you will clearly see how it is a misunderstanding to regard the hammer as having the same intelligibility as a physical object. A rock has this intelligibility. The hammer driving in the nail in wood in order to..., the door knob you don't notice but that you nevertheless turn to open the door in order to enter the room in order to..., the keyboard beneath your fingers that you type on in order to express the meaning of the sentence in order to..., the sidewalk at your feet while rushing to the train in order to not be late to work... have in the first instance the intelligibility of readiness-to-hand, there is no awareness of anything like an object. Moreover, properties do not belong to the ready-to-hand. Properties only belong to present-at-hand ontology. Therefore it only a confusion to talk about a hammer's intrinsic/extrinsic properties. To do so is to regard the hammer as a present-at-hand object.
I believe that there are different ontologies, do you think there is only one?
As a number concept, the quantitative concept of zero entails a unit-concept. We need to specify the unit, an answer to the question "Zero what?" Moreover, one might argue that what makes a negative existential claim (There is no x such that PHI(x)) a concept of zero-units is its place in a number system; and that the concept of nonexistence is thus more primitive than the concept of zero.
To say there are no marbles in an urn is not to say there's nothing in the urn.
To sat that Pegasus doesn't exist is not to say that nothing exists.
The abstract concept of zero and the abstract concept of nonexistence are distinct from each other as well as from the yet more abstract concept of Nothing.
Judgments that there are zero marbles in this urn involve conceptual relation among the concept "marble", the concept "this urn", and the world in which it's said there are no marbles in this urn.
Judgments that Pegasus doesn't exist involve conceptual relation between the concept "Pegasus" and the world in which it's said there's no such thing as Pegasus.
Second interesting fact: the symbol for zero, 0, came from the hole in the middle seat of a dhow (small sailing vessel).
Really? What then of the distinction quality vs quantity?
Also...
[Quote=Wikipedia]Quantity is a property that can exist as amultitude or magnitude. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more", "less", or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value in terms of a unit of measurement.[/quote]
Another thing is science is in the business of quantifying everything. I reckon it's to do with achieving objectivity and also the assumption that mathematics is the underlying principle of the universe.
So, a quality, unequivocally a property, can be quantified. For instance, red is a certain wavelength of light. I think quantity is a property.
Quoting bloodninja
NOTHING is, by definition, neither physical nor mental. Where, exactly, do you have a problem with that?
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
If you have the time, can you unpack the above quote for me? How is zero different from nonexistence from NOTHING?
To me, NOTHING is nonexistence and zero is a property of NOTHING.
Thanks for the post. I learned something.
Is Sunyata = NOTHING?
The fact that dogs can play with hammers does not imply that they are real. Dogs can play with hammers in cartoons, and no-one would think that dogs and hammers in cartoons are real. I will, however, concede that in using the term ‘object’ without making it clear that I mean ‘physical object’, since ‘object’ is frequently understood in philosophy to imply independent existence I may have seemed to be making a claim for reality of the hammer. This was not my intention.
Quoting bloodninja
You begin here by saying that the dog has no ontological view of the hammer (which I will agree to), but then you allow that to the dog the hammer is a play-thing. Obviously you do not mean to imply that the dog THINKS of the hammer as a play-thing – it just plays with it – but even so, your position is untenable, because if the dog is able to play with the hammer but does not view the hammer AS anything, this can only be by virtue of the hammer possessing some properties that are not conferred on the hammer by its being viewed AS something, but are actually intrinsic to the hammer. These are the hammer’s physical properties – its length, breadth, mass, shape, molecular constitution, and so on. These intrinsic physical properties constitute the hammer as a physical object.
Quoting bloodninja
Untrue. I can pick up a hammer, knowing it to be a hammer, and also being aware AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME of its size and shape and appearance, which are its properties as a physical object.
Quoting bloodninja
Everything that exists necessarily has properties, irrespective of whether it features in anyone’s ontology or not. Are you seriously going to claim that the hammer does not have such properties as length, breadth and mass?
It may be, of course, that you think hammers do not really exist, in which case your position is idealist. Are you in fact an idealist?
Quoting TheMadFool
Number is not the same as quantity. The number 3 is not the same as 3 OF something.
Quoting TheMadFool
No it isn’t. Red is a colour. There is a wavelength of light that, when viewed by humans with normal vision, causes them to see the colour red, but that is not the same as red being that wavelength.
What would you do if, you would know nothing, like that so called Socrates did? Would you use your shield of omnipatience in defence of the weak or not?
Should I Ask you, how did Socrates corrupted the youth? -Or not, because you dont' know?
Perhaps these things are irrelevant, hm what do you think?
It's a notoriously difficult concept to define, but the short answer is that ??nyat? is not simply nothing, but the insubstantial nature of the objects of perception. Buddhist philosophy says that people invest objects with significance that they don't actually have, due to desire and delusion, but if they see things properly, then they realise that such objects have no intrinsic value. That's one interpretation, although there are others.
However, the point in the context of this thread, is that Buddhist (and Indian) mathematicians didn't have the hang-ups about the concept of zero that were apparently held by rationalist Western mathematicians.
His "corrupting of the youth" was actually demonstrated in at least one case. He told a blacksmith's (I believe it was) son that he was doing the same work as slaves, and was better than that. The guy then became dissatisfied with his work with is father, as one would, but couldn't figure out what else to do, and took to drinking, and self-destructed basically.
Hegel actually argues that the Athenians demonstrated every single accusations they waged against him.
What's the difference?
Quoting Vajk
Socrates? What does he have to do with nothing? I know that he's famous for the words ''I know that I know nothing.'' However, this statement can be better expressed as ''I know that what I know isn't perfect, in the sense that it's free of inconsistencies''.
Quoting Wayfarer
I understand. Thanks.
Quoting Wayfarer
I guess the Devil wasn't associated with NOTHING in these culture.
"You know nothing John Snow"
I don't see the relevance of this to my OP.
Do you know anything about NOTHING? If you do, please share. Thanks.
Could Nothing be the very reason for everything?
What do you mean?
I guess it depend, which world we talking about, so lets push it a bit, to the "world of Ideas".
You mean I am disagreeing for the sake of it? That's pretty insulting, and not true. I disagree with you because I think you are wrong.
Quoting bloodninja
The being of the hammer and its hammerness are not the same thing. Its being is as a physical object. Its hammerness, by contrast, consists in its being thought of and used by us as a hammer.
Quoting bloodninja
I haven't said that it is. Its being, which is physical, is not added to it, it is intrinsic. It's its being a hammer that is added to it (by us) and which is extrinsic.
Quoting bloodninja
You have it backwards. The being of the hammer is as a physical object, not as equipment.
Quoting bloodninja
Being a hammer is a property. As I have said, it is an extrinsic property. The hammer's being a hammer is not the same as its mere being. Its mere being is the same as its existence, and there is no agreement among philosophers as to whether existence is a property.
To summarise my position:
1. The being of the hammer, its existence, is as a physical object. It has physical properties which are intrinsic to it.
2. The hammerness of the hammer, its being a hammer as opposed to its merely being, is an extrinsic property which is added to the hammer by us.
Well, NOTHING forms the backdrop to everything. A physical object occupies the space that was NOTHING. An idea forms to occupy what was once a void/NOTHING. Tabula rasa?
Maybe we should agree to disagree. To modify your quote above, I would summarize my position as:
1. The being of the object-Thing as an occurrent physical object, has physical properties.
2. The being of the hammer, as ready-to-hand equipment, is of a different ontological mode than (1).
For your interest, below I have copied and pasted a very small excerpt of Heidegger's description of the phenomenology of equipment in section 15 of Being and Time.
"Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment. To the Being of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which it can be this equipment that it is. Equipment is essentially 'something in-order-to...' A totality of equipment is constituted by various ways of the 'in-order-to', such as serviceability, conduciveness, usability, manipulability."
"In the 'in-order-to' as a structure there lies an assignment or reference of something to something... Equipment-in accordance with its equipmentality-always is in terms of its belonging to other equipment: ink-stand, pen, ink, paper, blotting pad, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors, room. These 'Things' never show themselves proximally as they are for themselves, so as to add up to a sum of realia and fill up a room. What we encounter as closest to us (though not as something taken as a theme) is the room; and we encounter it not as something 'between four walls' in a geometrical spatial sense, but as equipment for residing. Out of this the 'arrangement' emerges, and it is in this that any 'individual' item of equipment shows itself. Before it does so, a totality of equipment has already been discovered."
"Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, for example) ; but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not grasped thematically as an occurring Thing, nor is the equipment-structure known as such even in the using. The hammering does not simply have knowledge about the hammer's character as equipment, but it has appropriated this equipment in a way which could not possibly be more suitable. In dealings such as this, where something is put to use, our concern subordinates itself to the "in-order-to" which is constitutive for the equipment we are employing at the time ; the less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is-as equipment. The hammering itself uncovers the specific 'manipulability' of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses—in which it manifests itself in its own right—we call "readiness-to-hand". Only because equipment has this 'Being-in-itself' and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal. No matter how sharply we just look at the 'outward appearance' of Things in whatever form this takes, we cannot discover anything ready-to-hand. If we look at Things just 'theoretically', we can get along without understanding readiness-to-hand. But when we deal with them by using them and manipulating them, this activity is not a blind one; it has its own kind of sight, by which our manipulation is guided and from which it acquires its specific Thingly character. Dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to the manifold assignments of the 'in-order-to'. And the sight with which they thus accommodate themselves is circumspection."
"....The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as a circumspective theme. The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically. That with which our everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves. On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work-that which is to be produced at the time; and this is accordingly ready-to-hand too. The work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered."
What does it mean to say "NOTHING is nonexistence"? Do you mean that "Pegasus does not exist" and "Pegasus is NOTHING" are essentially the same claim?
What would it mean for NOTHING to have properties? At first glance it makes more sense to say NOTHING is a property some things have -- more specifically, a property that some predicates, like "being Pegasus", have. For no thing is Pegasus.
Strictly speaking, I'm not sure what a "property" is supposed to be. I have a rough idea what it means to say something like "Hardness is a property of this lump of quartz", or "This quartz has the property of hardness", but I'm not sure whether such expressions mean anything different than "This quartz is hard". We count ourselves entitled to apply the predicate "hard" to this quartz, because it appears to satisfy our standards for applying the term. We have a concept of "being hard" that is informed by encounters with various things said to be hard or not-hard.... What is the special role of the concept of "property" in such accounts? I'm not sure it does any useful work that we can't allocate to terms like "predicate" and "concept" on the one hand, and to terms like "feature" or "characteristic" on the other. Meanwhile, it seems there's a great deal of confusion among philosophers about the use of the term "property".
What do you mean when you say, "zero is a property of NOTHING"? One interpretation that comes to mind: NOTHING is a concept, and there are no things that exist that are NOTHING, in other words, there are no objects that satisfy the predicate "x is NOTHING". Accordingly, no NOTHINGs exist, and the number of NOTHINGs in the universe is zero. Same as the number of Pegasuses.
Alternatively, we might say zero and NOTHING are closely related properties of some predicates or concepts, namely, those without objects.
I'll take a whack at that little bundle you asked me to unpack:
So far as I can see, the main difference between zero and nonexistence is that zero is a number concept with a role in a system of number concepts, whereas the concepts of existence and nonexistence are distinct from, and I suppose logically prior to, any concept of number.
I take it that claims involving terms "existence" and "nonexistence" here are just claims to the effect that "There is some x such that PHI(x)", "There is no x such that PHI(x)", and the like. Claims that there are "zero" of something have basically the same logical form as "There is no x such that PHI(x), except that they're linked to a system of number-concepts and numerical relations.
By contrast, the concept of "Nothing" seems a sort of confused conceptual abstraction -- the idea that there is some thing that exists, the nature of which is to be no thing and to be nonexistent... or I don't know what.
I said it's "yet more abstract" than the concepts of zero and nonexistence, because it seems to involve a sort of generalization of the logic of such negative concepts, or even a reification of some such generalization.
I call concepts of number and existence, and perhaps a fortiori the concepts of zero and nonexistence, "abstract" because it seems to me that, although we use such concepts to make objective claims about the world, there are no "things" in the world called "numbers", and there is no "thing" in the world called "existence" -- except insofar as our concepts and their relations may be counted among the "things in the world".
I'm inclined to lump numerical, causal, modal, and existential judgments together in this respect.
I was clear (at least I tried to be) that a thought, one of which is a pegasus, is not nonexistence. A pegasus is an idea and exists in the mental world. It may have no physical correlate but a pegasus exists in the mind. So, no, I don't think a pegasus is NOTHING.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
NOTHING is not a concept. I believe we can have concepts OF things but the concept is not equivalent to the thing we have a concept of. This part is still unclear to me but my reasoning is that NOTHING, being defined as nonexistence, can't be a concept because concepts exist in the mental world. So, I think we have a concept OF NOTHING and this concept is something similar to a road sign pointing to NOTHING without itself being that which it points to.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
Zero is, to me, the quantity of NOTHING. If you have 2 dogs and I buy them both you're left with NOTHING, or in other words, zero dogs. Nobody will question my math. However, I do agree that NOTHING is prior to zero.
What is a "mental world"? How many mental worlds are there? What does it mean to say an idea or concept or fictional object "exists in the mental world"?
I agree that an actual thought, idea, concept, or fictional object is not a nonexistent entity, regardless of whether it has a "physical correlate" in the sense indicated. I agree that we have concepts or ideas of Pegasus, we have thoughts and tell stories about one or more fictional objects called Pegasus.
Quoting TheMadFool
I agree that, at least typically, a concept is not identical to the thing it is a concept of.
If nonexistence and NOTHING are not conceptual, then I'm not sure what we're talking about here.
It's beginning to sound as though you're saying that NOTHING, aka nonexistence, is a thing that exists, that is not merely conceptual, and that does not exist merely in the mental world. Is that the ballpark?
Quoting TheMadFool
But I'm not left with NOTHING when you take away my dogs. I'm left with plenty, but no dogs. Likewise, when you take my dogs, I'm not left with ZERO, but with zero dogs. Similarly, I don't "have TWO", but I have two hands and two feet.
I do indeed object to your use of mathematics -- not the abstract calculation, but the neglect of units.
Zero is the number of dogs I'm left with when you take them all away. Zero is the number of lots of things, just like any number is the number of lots of things. In each case, the number is a function of a concept, like "Dogs of the Cabbage Farmer at time t", and with respect to number we may call this concept a unit.
Used without context 'Nothing' is an oxymoron.
Even as a theory 'Nothing' or 'Non-existence', If one could possibly explain what it is, then in explination it would exist and that would be a contradiction.
The world of thoughts, distinct from the physical world we touch, see, hear and feel. Pegasus exists in the mind, the mental world; it is a mental object/thing, isn't it?
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
I'm saying exactly the opposite. NOTHING can't be physical or mental. Anything that exists in these two worlds have properties e.g. a banana is yellow and a pegasus has wings. But, NOTHING, being nonexistence, has no properties.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
We can work with numbers without units. Pure arithmetic: 2 - 2 = 0. Ask yourself ''how many things there are in NOTHING?'' The answer is ''zero''.
Quoting bloodninja
I'm talking about a specific NOTHING - nonexistence, not anything. Perhaps yhis is what you mean by ''primordial nothing''.
Someone could say that there are only abstract facts if there's someone to know them. Sure, and that experience and experiencer are part of any hypothetical system of abstract facts.
That's one reason why I suggest that experience is primary. It would seem meaningless to speak of a world, hypothetical or otherwise, without an experiencer of it.
I wouldn't call those hypothetical abstract systems "nothing", if they're all that metaphysically is.
Michael Ossipoff
Abstract objects were always there, and didn't at some time appear to occupy what was once nothing.
An inter-referring systems of abstract facts doesn't need a backdrop, or a medium in which to be, or some sort of global or objective reality.
No one ever experiences "nothing", so the experience-primary point of view doesn't support the notion of it.
Michael Ossipoff
Kai
from American Horror Story S07 ep 1
You picked out one of the most beautiful ideas in B&T. Really it's just a testament of the book's strength that the idea is hard to communicate. We are trained to think in terms of the present-at-hand, even if we've never read Descartes, for instance. The "scientific image" is the "real" image, even if it is a learned abstraction as opposed to our immersion in the ready-to-hand since childhood.
Well, NOTHING = nonexistence.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
But NOTHING isn't a concept.
Quoting Vajk
(Y)
What else is it? It isn't ever anyone's experience.
But the if-then facts that I'm talking about are concepts too, meaning that each universe, such as ours, consisting of an inter-referring system of them is conceptual too.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
There is the answer for the first part:
About the second part:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
So you saying that Socrates wasn‘t anyone, then who was he?
I must admit that i don't know what the matter of whether Socrates was anyone has to do with the matter of whether Nothing is a concept or is ever anyone's experience.
Michael Ossipoff
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Why is that, what do You think?
Is it because You do not see my points, or is it because there is nothing to see?
Yes. But I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm only saying that we're talking about different subjects.
I don't know, Philosophy allows so much verbal scope that it's easy for people to talk past eachother in a philosophical discussion. Too often, we're talking really about different subjects, and what i say doesn't apply to what you said, and vice-versa. That happens all the time in philosophy, and is the reason why there's so much disagreement. ...and always so much unlimited room for disagreement.
But it prevents us from reaching agreements. Professional academic philosophers love that, of course, it provides them with endless scope to continue publishing. You know, "Publish or Perish".
I'm willing to listen to and answer any objection(s) to my metaphysical proposal, or other metaphysical or ontological statements.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
You do not think, that there is a connection between Socrates and nothing/everything?
I have to admit that I don't know what he said about that matter.
But it probably doesn't refute the statement that no one ever experiences Nothing. No one quite arrives at nothing. So Nothing is a concept instead of an experience.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
May I ask you, what do you think about this?
This question is open for everyone!
So, if you hold nothing in your hand, thats rather a concept than an experience.
Is that what you say?
NOTHING is nonexistence. Nonexistence can't be experienced. A concept, on the other hand, can be experienced - thought of, manipulated, etc. So, NOTHING isn't a concept. However, we do have a concept of NOTHING.
Please read above.
So, if I hold nothing in my hand, I can not expererience it at the same time, is that what you say?
You're experiencing a spatial form of NOTHING. Empty space is commonly used to convey the meaning of NOTHING.
Quoting TheMadFool
Even if it‘s not empty?
NB It is of course all down to one`s definition of the term, but by the standard narrow definition there is little left for debate.
What makes an ‘‘empty space‘‘ ‘‘empty‘‘?
That's true. I was a bit careless with my words. What I meant is that Nothing is the subject of a concept.
Of course, as you said, a concept is something, and so it can't be said that Nothing is a concept.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting TheMadFool
For one thing, you'd have air in your hands.
Anyway:
Strictly speaking, "empty" space isn't really empty, and isn't nothing. It's full of virtual particles coming into existence briefly, and then disappearing.
Those virtual particles have been experimentally-detected. Their pressure has been measured.
Aside from all that, when we say, "Could there have been Nothing?", we don't mean "Could there have been local places where there's nothing?" We mean "Could there have been Nothing, and only Nothing?"
Michael Ossipoff
Anyway, when I said that we never experience Nothing, I wasn't talking about experiencing the fact of some little bit of nothing somewhere (even if there were such). I was talking about experiencing only nothing. I meant that we never experience the time after death, at which the body has entirely shut down, and doesn't support any experience.
As I was saying, only our survivors experience that time. There's no such thing as "oblivion". There's a concept about it, but we never experience it.
The natural logarithm of 2 is only an abstract object, but we use it. Oblivion is in a whole different class. Not only do we never reach it, but we never experience it in any manner.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I think it is possible that I‘m seeing these ‘‘virtual particles‘‘.
Yes, I think empty space is a good analogy of NOTHING. Isn't that why we use it so often?
Is it possible, that I see it differently, because while I hold (what you call) nothing in my hand I can see those ’’virtual particles’’?
Yes, everybody sees differently. Can you expand on what you mean?
The tabula rasa is not nothing, it's something. In this context, a physical object does not occupy nothing: it occupies space, which in itself is something. That space also has location, which is maybe something.
"Yes, everybody sees differently. Can you expand on what you mean?"
Im not sure if that is a Good idea or not.
As I understand it (which is not very well, since I am no scientist), time only came into being with the big bang, and since 'always' is a temporal concept, there would have been no 'always' if there had been no big bang. This would seem to imply that abstract objects appeared at the moment of the big bang.
This assumes, of course, that there has only ever been one universe. If there are many universes, then presumably each has its own time, and that in turn would suggest that each has its own collection of abstract objects which appeared when that universe came into existence.
Wittgenstein said that the world is all that is the case. I would suggest that nothing is the same as there not being a world, which is then the same as nothing being the case. If it is suggested that this leads to a reductio (if nothing is the case, then prima facie it is the case that nothing is the case, therefore something is the case), I would suggest that this is a mistake, because nothing can be the case, not even that nothing is the case, if there is no time in which it could be the case, and if there were no universe, then since there can only be time if there is a universe, there would be no such time.
Brief preliminary reply:
I meant that abstract facts, and other abstract objects are timeless.
They aren't in spacetime at all. universes can come and go, and they're unaffected.
If there were no facts, then it would be a fact that there are no facts, and so there would be a fact.
Your objection to that is that there wouldn't be any time for there to be a fact. But abstract facts don't need any time to be in. They just are. ...independent of time and space.
Someone could answer that there could obtain a fact that says: "The only fact is this fact that says that there are no other facts."
Yes, but it's special pleading, a special brute-fact, unexplained and calling for explanation.
Besides, abstract facts, and isolated systems of inter-referring abstract facts are entirely independent of anythiing else, not needing to be factual in any context other than their own local inter-referring context. A local isolated inter-referring system of abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals doesn't need any context other than its own, in which to be factual. It doesn't need any sort of global permission for there to be abstract facts. And it isn't subject to any global prohibition, rule, or fact about there not being any abstract facts.
Such a system doesn't need to be factual in any larger context, and doesn't need any medium in which to be, to be true, or to be factual.
This is just a brief preliminary answer.
I heard that Wittgenstein said that there are no things, just facts. I like that.
Michael Ossipoff
I see no need for abstract objects, so I invoke Occam's razor. Away with them.
Nor do I see a need for abstract facts. Consider the fact that 2 + 2 = 4. Is that still a fact if there are no objects that can be grouped into twos and fours? I see no need for it to be.
I am sceptical of the entire idea of timelessness. Every existent thing of which we have knowledge exists temporally. I suspect the notion of timelessness to be incoherent. If I try to imagine something timeless, I actually imagine something persisting unchanging, but persisting requires time in which the persistence can occur.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I don't think facts about hypotheticals are genuine facts. Consider the putative fact that if there were dragons, they would breathe flame. Is that a genuine fact? I don't think so. I think it is just something we imagine.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I don't see how there could be facts if there were no things for the facts to be about.
For me everything looks like this, and while I say everything, nothing is not an exception.
NOTHING is, by definition, NOT anything.
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— Michael Ossipoff
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You said:
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??? That’s quite a statement.
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The number two is something. It isn’t a material object. It isn’t in spacetime. It’s an abstract object.
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That’s an example of what “abstract object” refers to.
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It isn’t denied by anyone that there are such things.
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You can quibble all you want about what’s “real” or what “exists”. There’s no need to. Those two words don’t have widely-accepted metaphysical definitions, and anyone can use them as they wish. I won’t get into such a quibble.
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Feel free to feel that abstract objects don’t exist or aren’t real. I won’t tell you what to consider real or existent.
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They’re a kind of abstract object, but a special kind that can be true or false.
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Yes.
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If there were no objects, there’d be no people, and there’d be no need for anyone to use equations, theorems or numbers.
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So it isn’t really about need
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2+2=4, with reasonable definitions of 2 and 4, is easily provable, by the additive associative axiom of the real numbers, rational numbers and integers
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A mathematical theorem, or any proved mathematical fact, is an if-then fact whose “if “ premise includes, but isn’t limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (algebraic or geometric).
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Given reasonable definitions of 2 and 4: If the additive associative axiom is true, then 2+2=4.
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At what time does 2+2=4?
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How long has 2+2=4 been true?
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Where is 2+2=4? (…if you don’t believe in positionless-ness either)
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Feel free to define “existent” as “material” or “physical”. Suit yourself.
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I’d said:
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You replied:
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If all slithytoves are brillig, and if all jaberwockys are slithytoves, then all jaberwockeys are brillig.
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That if-then fact about hypotheticals is timelessly true even if none of the slithytoves are brillig.
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That if-then fact about hypotheticals is timelessly true even if none of the jaberwockeys are slithytoves.
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That if-then fact about hypotheticals is timelessly true even if there are no jaberwockeys or slithytoves.
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No, not if there were non-flame-breathing dragons. What if a dragon had a cold?
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However if there were fire-breathing dragons, they’d breathe fire. That’s a genuine fact.
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You feel that facts can only be about existent physical objects. You’re certainly welcome to define words, such as “fact”, as you wish.
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I’d said:
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— Michael Ossipoff
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You replied:
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…with your definition of facts.
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See above, regarding slithytoves and jaberwockeys.
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A physical law is a hypothetical relation among a set of hypothetical physical quantity-values.
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That physical law, and all but one of those values, can be taken, together, as the “if “ premise as an if-then fact.
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The remaining one of those values can be taken as the “then” conclusion of that if-then fact.
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As I said, a mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose “if “ premise includes but isn’t limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (algebraic or geometric).
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There can of course be complex systems of inter-referring if-then facts about hypotheticals.
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…infinitely-many such logical-systems.
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Inevitably, one of those infinitely-many complex logical systems has the same events and relations as those of our “physical” world. There’s no reason to believe that our “physical” world is other than that.
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If there are “concrete”, objectively-existent “things”—if our universe is other than a complex logical system, then that’s a superfluous unfalsifiable brute-fact.
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The physicist Michael Faraday pointed that out in 1844. Physicists Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark have said it more recently.
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As already noted, Wittgenstein said that there are no things, only facts.
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Before convincing yourself that you’re right and they’re all wrong, take a more critical look at the subject.
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Ockam’s Principle of Parsimony says to avoid unnecessary assumptions, or to at least minimize assumptions.
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The metaphysics described above doesn’t need or make any assumptions, or have any brute-facts. Materialism has a big, blatant brute-fact: Its unexplained fundamentally-existent, objectively-existent physical universe.
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I get that you don’t value, recognize or take seriously philosophy, or metaphysics in particular. Fine. Lots of people don’t. They don’t post here.
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You realize that this is a philosophy forum, right?
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Michael Ossipoff
Quoting TheMadFool
It depend, who made that definition I guess.
What is your definition of NOTHING?
Nothing is nothing.
If someone would say that ‘‘There is not even nothing‘‘ then perhaps I‘ve could say, that there is not even even.
Or what about this?
If not anything, then nothing is bigger then human ego.
We've had some discussion here about why there couldn't have been that full Nothing.
A more modest Nothing, and one that we have (unless there's superfluously and unfalsifiably more, as a brute-fact) is no "concrete", objectively-existent,fundamentally-existent, Materialist physical universe and Materialist "Stuff". ...but still abstract facts (such as the complex inter-referring system of them that is our universe).
But I don't call that latter one "Nothing". ...because one of them is the context of our lives.
By "Nothing", I'd refer to the full Nothing that I mentioned first.
Google "Lawrence Kuhn, Hierarchy of Nothings", or something like that.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
It is denied by nominalists. I'm surprised that you don't know that. See, for example, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
In general, I take a nominalist view of facts. The fact that 2 +2 = 4 can be reduced to the fact that all occurrences of two concrete particulars and another two concrete particulars constitute an occurrence of four concrete particulars. Nothing else, and in particular no abstract objects, are required to describe what obtains.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Your supposed 'if-then fact about hypotheticals' is actually about slithytoves and jaberwockys, not about hypotheticals, because the supposed if-then fact actually is the hypothetical. And my nominalist view is that there can be no facts about slithytoves and jaberwockys because these are non-existents, and you cannot have facts about non-existents. Your first statement here (If all slithytoves are brillig, and if all jaberwockys are slithytoves, then all jaberwockeys are brillig) is true, but only in a formal logical sense of 'true'; it has the kind of truth that is determined by logic, not by fact.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Absurd. I'm a nominalist, and nominalism is a metaphysical theory.
I fail to understand you.
Nothing is better than sex. $1 is better than nothing. So, $1 is better than sex.
Your point seems to revolve around the above fallacious argument. Am I right?
What have you seen on that picture I linked before?
An eye.
The faculty of vision, the ultimate sense organ; used as an analogy for understanding, comprehension.
The importance of perspective. At close range, it's just a bunch of blots of paint. At a particular distance, we see an eye. Go farther out and it becomes a point.
A painter's inner thoughts. May be s/he thinks eyes are a window to the self. It reveals a person just as it reveals the external world.
A complex organization...irreducible complexity...god?
Sorry, my imagination fails me. What do you have in mind?
It isn't a substantive disagreement. Definitional only.
Nominalists just use "Exist", "Fact" and "is" with different meaning.
Michael Ossipoff
Pointilism allows colors and brilliance that aren't possible with the subtractive combinations of ordinary painting.
Michael Ossipoff
I see everything builded up from theese small dots.
Things have properties. Nothing has no properties, as having is a property of existing. Things exist; nothing does not exist and has no properties. Not having a property is not a property.
Quoting charleton
Relatively not or simply not?
True, there isn't anything that nothing is. There's no answer to what nothing is, because it isn't anything.
As you said, there can't be an answer to "What is Nothing?"
But, where the subject of Nothing comes up is when it's asked why there's anything. Sometimes it's asked if there could have not been anything.
And you have to admit that, if you believe that, metaphysically, at the metaphysical level, there's something "concrete", solid, objectively-existent, then you've got something to explain. Why is there something instead of Nothing?
A Materialist (aka metaphysical Physicalist, "Naturalist", or Nominalist) will say that there just is the physical world, and that it's just a brute-fact. We observe it, measure it, and it's there, and there's no explanation. Some people don't find that satisfactory.
But there's no such problem, nothing to explain, if, metaphysically, there isn't anything "concrete" and objectively-existent. ...if there's nothing but abstract facts.
(We've talked about why there couldn't have not been abstract facts.)
And if, as I've described, our physical universe can be explained from that basis, then, if the Materialist/Naturalist/Nominalist believes in something more, then he believes in something superfluous, unfalsfiable, and unverifiable.
Then there's nothing to explain, no brute-fact. And when there needn't be a brute-fact, then the Materialist's/Naturalist's/Nominalist's brute-fact is no longer convincing, or even acceptable.
What I'm saying there metaphysically only is--a Nominalist would call it "Nothing" So, if Nominalist definitions are your definitions, then, metaphysically, there's Nothing.
Michael Ossipoff
Yes, from a distance, a seemingly solid picture,which, upon closer inspection, turns out to consist of something different from what you saw at a distance and thought that it was. ...pervaded by blank paper with nothing marked on it.
So why couldn't our physical universe, with its seemingly solid things, be similarly composed of something quite different from what we've been taught to assume? Something not so "solid" and "concrete"? Because science says so? No, it doesn't.
Michael Ossipoff
I mean literally, Quoting Vajk
What do you mean by that?
"[i]A Materialist (aka metaphysical Physicalist, "Naturalist", or Nominalist) will say that there just is the physical world, and that it's just a brute-fact. We observe it, measure it, and it's there, and there's no explanation. Some people don't find that satisfactory.
But there's no such problem, nothing to explain, if, metaphysically, there isn't anything "concrete" and objectively-existent. ...if there's nothing but abstract facts.
And you have to admit that, if you believe that, metaphysically, at the metaphysical level, there's something "concrete", solid, objectively-existent, then you've got something to explain. Why is there something instead of Nothing?[/i]"
If the case were that there was nothing rather than something, then it would not even be possible to ask such a question - there being nothing is ask, and nothing to answer. Symmetrically, then, there is no burden to have to answer why there is something rather than nothing. The condition of nothing rather than something is not even a condition or state of affairs. Nothing is also no state of affairs at all.
Things being concrete or objective is just a detail. If the world were purely conceptual and subjective, there still would have to BE a conceiver and subject to conceive. Object/subject divisions are not questions about existence, but about perceptions of existence - as existence is a substrate of the ground of possibility of asking.
What do you mean?
Quoting charleton
Quoting Vajk
-How not? relativly not, simply not, or "absolutely" not?
What's the problem?
Nothing.
-I can not belive in nothing, althought i can‘t even stop seeing it.
Nothing is possibly something that not everyone able to experience via senses. ( - Wouldn‘t be the first thing what we heard about, isn‘t it?)
I’d said:
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You said:
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Of course that’s an answer that Lawrence Kuhn often got when he interviewed philosophers and physicists, asking them that question. Kuhn then pointed out that that doesn’t answer the question. Nothing is simpler, natural, and seems the default. Anything else requires an explanation. Yes, Nothing wouldn’t require any explanation, for more reasons than one. But Something seems to call for explanation.
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You said:
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Sure, a condition or a state is something, and an affair is something. So just “not anything”?
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You said:
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Yes, it can be argued that even abstract facts are meaningful only in our experience. (more about that later in this reply)
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You said:
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Sure. I’d been taking a fully Anti-Realist view. But then it occurred to me that maybe Anti-Realism has a problem with the meaning of “abstract” in “abstract facts”. Doesn’t “abstract” mean “considered without regard to anything else”? So, saying that abstract facts depend on our experience—doesn’t that contradict what “abstract” means? Shouldn’t philosophy be general, objective, and abstract enough to also look at abstract facts apart from our experience of them?
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“Only our experience is relevant and real. …And ‘relevant’ and ‘real’ mean relevant and real to our experience.” ?
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Sounds like blatant chauvinism.
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...chauvinism as in the example that I’ve been using, in which the Giraffe proposes that the one with the longest neck get all the jellybeans.
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Whether abstract facts can be real or existent without our experience of them depends on what we mean by “real” and “existent”. And those words don’t have agreed-upon definitions. So, since it’s just definitional, isn’t it moot?
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So Anti-Realism can’t be an absolute position.
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Isn’t it true that the most we can say about that is that our experience is what’s relevant and real to us?
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Without judging the reality or existence of what isn’t in our experience, it’s reasonable speak of things in terms of our experience—because that’s what there is, for us, as experiencing beings.
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…and that sounds similar to what you said:
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My answer to why there’s something (abstract facts) instead of Nothing, is that it’s because an abstract fact, or an inter-referring system of them, doesn’t need to appeal to, or have permission from, or have reality or existence in, any outside larger context. Nor does it need a medium in which to be true. That abstract fact, or inter-referring system of them can, and need only, be valid and meaningful in its own context.
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So there couldn’t have not been abstract facts, and inter-referring systems of them.
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…infinitely-many such systems.
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As experiencers, it’s natural, and not wrong, for us to encounter and empirically define and describe everything in terms of our experience. …without chauvinistically decreeing meanings for the un-defined words “real” and “existent” in terms of our experience.
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Michael Ossipoff
Quoting charleton
I do not know. Am I?
How did you get to this point?
I hope you‘ re right! : )
This reminds me of the p=np problem for some reason....
Anyways I just wanted to ask, doesn't it confuse you when you quantify N and realize that you have assigned it a property and it ceases to exist?
Nothing is similar to zero, it is like a place holder when nothing else should be substituted.
I imagine 'nothing' can be described in more ways than anything else can since it is beyond the infinite. I don't know that if two 'nothings' were together there would be any discernible boundary.
I think nothing is only a useful concept when compared to something else and I suspect to clarify there are more varieties of 'nothingness' than anyone could ever comprehend or make sense of. Nothing might logically be like the exception that proves the rule.
Quoting TheMadFool
Nothing could be everywhere because by adding nothing we are making no difference. All things being equal. Meaningless gibberish and speculation about unknown quantities or qualities say nothing.
Conversely, by taking something away, you could be said to be substituting nothing to a place where there used to be something else. I doubt such an action as 'substituting nothing to a place where there used to be something else' is physically possible in our universe though, it sounds like nonsense, but there always seems to be an alternative..
X-)
This conversation might go nowhere to replace the nothing that used to be there, if anyone takes anything from my comments I guess we are making progress, nothing is impossible.
Nothing is real anyway. Nothing is everywhere. Nothing to focus on means no target, no subject, no 'N' to perceive and so no problem. The assumption that the future will resemble the past can never be proven, I guess that's because nothing is certain. It is surrounded by nothing when all things are encompassed - by 'it' i mean whatever it is that you are trying to define. Does anyone understand me? I often rant incoherently.
"doesn't it confuse you when you quantify N and realize that you have assigned it a property and it ceases to exist?
— Myttenar
Nothing is real anyway."
I apologize if you missed that, I was making a joke.
By "it"- I was referring to the quantified nothing, which has properties due to being quantified. Since nothing had been defined as having no properties by assigning value it is no longer nothing by definition.
Again, I found it humorous to picture a philosopher who has lost nothing in the literal sense and attempting to find it.
Hilarious to me, anyways.
Anyways, just so nobody can say I did not add to the idea, I believe that by creating a definition for "nothing" if you are having difficulty with the idea.
And I'm just going to point out here that nothing is, in fact not everywhere.
I think the problem here is the attempt to assign value to nothing when nothing is the lack of a thing with a value.
To say "nothing" exists is in itself a fallacy as nothing carries the definition as being the opposite of "something " which we can quantify.
Oh and I do find contradictory statements and paradoxes amusing just the same.
It seems to me that there is always room to add something even if it is just more 'nothing' that you add or perhaps a kind of energy or potential?
Quoting Myttenar
Not much of a point saying this, but if you added nothing to every location, would you really be changing anything? I mean how could anyone know that nothing is not everywhere unless an example could be proven for which it is impossible to add nothing? I believe if it can happen it will or it already has.
I see logic failing to explain things more often then it successfully proves anything.
One divided by zero can not be done unless you replace the zero with a slightly different version of nothing.
Quoting Myttenar
If you ask me - and I know no-one has - our limitations are such that we have to 'invent' or 'create' properties for things in order to discuss them or perceive them. In any case there are many different ways to write 'nothing' - different fonts, different colours, different mediums for example and we shouldn't argue about the meaning being different unless we all genuinely recognize the differences.
I maintain that when 'nothing' is defined as the absence of something or in other words 'empty space' it is everywhere. We can always add something or substitute something and that is the essence of change. If nothing really had no properties it would still be a misnomer.
I believe there is literally nothing that can't be thought. There seems to be plenty of space for 'new' ideas here.. Nothing is impossible. If we discovered nothing we would have a tendency to fill in the gaps, it's in our nature..
Perhaps nothing is part of what drives us to explore and/or learn? I imagine there is plenty of space between my ears.. :D
I think this is a fantastic question.
something from nothing - what zero really is and where it came from (in brief)
zero is not really a number 'nothing is not really a problem'
integers can be used for counting but zero apparently has more versatility or purpose than other integers
Quoting charleton
A good observation, and a strong argument, but does it mean we have nothing to talk about?
I say 'nothing is not' does not mean that 'nothing' can't be described. I mean if you think about it 'nothing is not' is a good example of how to describe nothing. I believe something that is not can change into something else either by way of 'unravelling' or by way of acquiring a different view point or a different means of perception. "What is nothing?" is asking for a description of something that you yourself have found a good way to describe, so even if the question is meaningless it can still be answered in a variety of ways which I would say means it is not mindless gibberish - it is a good question.
"what is nothing?" - 'nothing' is difficult to replicate and seems to be some sort of origin
From now on, 'nothing' will be my suspension of disbelief :D
"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
In response to what exactly?
If you are not present to make a point, that is evidence enough that you are not taking part in the conversation or simply missing the point..?
You might just as well try explicating that nothing is nothing and be content with that as a clear definition.
I'm not trying to say 'the absence of evidence is evidence of absence' it sounds like you've misunderstood me if you think you are disagreeing..? It sounds preposterous. Just because you can't find something doesn't necessarily mean that it must be somewhere else, but at the same time you can't conclude that something doesn't exist simply because it has never been discovered. You sound clever, I hope you have more to contribute..?
Forgive me for assuming the point was made, I should have expanded.
I believe an error is made when the idea of 0 is being regarded as a quantifiable object instead of a frame of reference.
Quoting Myttenar
OK if you are into semantics, grammar, logic or the like.. how about this? You say nothing is not everywhere right? Doesn't that mean you are implying that at least in some places there is an absence of nothing? I have struggled with the concept of nothing for a while, but the concept of the absence of nothing is another story - at face value it seems to contradict itself. In a system where nothing exists the absence of nothing is impossible when absence itself is a version of nothing. Perhaps the logic is somehow flawed when trying to compare nothing with nothing? Someone please clarify..?
I guess maybe it can be proven that nothing simply doesn't exist, but I've never seen any proof. Strictly speaking I guess 'nothing' doesn't exist - there is always something. But the word still has meaning and that is what I thought we were supposed to be trying to establish.
"Doesn't that mean you are implying that at least in some places there is an absence of nothing?"
Well yes obviously, every place where something exists that is not nothing..
"I believe an error is made when the idea of 0 is being regarded as a quantifiable object instead of a frame of reference." - Myttenar
Thanks
Quoting Myttenar
That would be a misguided definition of nothing.. I mean I agree. How about this then..? How can two nothings be compared? If they have different locations as is implied by an absence being possible then how could they be identical and how could a 'nothing' have a location anyway since it has no properties? Or are you suggesting that there is something everywhere?
I currently believe that 'nothing' is a self perpetuating origin but I would like to learn something that debunks this.. hey Myttenar..? You still breathing? ;)
Thanks Maw, we might be headed somewhere, your clarity and your succinct statements help me see I've been rambling but the question remains "If Nothing is not a thing then what is it?" I still think nothing is a self perpetuating origin, just 'not in so many words' if you will allow me some poetic license? Maybe things will get a bit esoteric? Maybe there is not only always something but also always something else? I'm curious now Maw, would you say 'nothing' is unknowable?
Sometimes I get thrown by ambiguity but sometimes I contradict myself frequently or try to 'fix it when it ain't broke'. I mean I'm not usually content with conclusions as you might have gathered and often see contestation where there is none. As far as substantives go, I'm sure there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Actually that is exactly what it means.
Nothing has no properties and can be only be described as such. You can even say "nothing is..." or "nothing has..." Because "nothing" cannot have any properties.
I'm not sure "nothing is not" is a description of a thing, and no thing can follow on from that comprehensive description.
When there is nothing to be said it is best to say nothing.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Wittgenstein
Lost pearls.
By definition in my eyes nothing is what is missing but it is everywhere and it's all a bit chaotic. I'm seeking clarity.
Being vague and waiting for an answer, who would have thought you could have a conversation about nothing? Seems absurd. Even if "What is nothing?" was meaningless it could still serve as an ice breaker.. Perhaps it is a good idea to yield to nothing?
Again, as a frame of reference nothing needs no comparison, it is universal. Comparison arises between "things".
Quoting believenothing
I agree to this as part of my argumeny though the rest of this sentence made no sense to me.
Quoting believenothing
Affirmative. Awake is another story :)
shall not belive Nothing! and/or You shall not belive Anything!
Then I started to laugh, and I was born, but thats not all.
I also see these points everywhere (actually I can not not to see them, even when my eyes are closed.)
Now, You see this pointilist picture, with the dots on it. To me on this world, everything looks the same even empty space..
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/458663543285397945/
(Quoting believenothing)
Quoting Myttenar
If you imagine nothing and focus, keep it in your mind and continue then you might take it with you. Leave nothing behind and leave no stone unturned, there may be more to discover. For Pete's sake I'm ranting again but I thought I might try to explain the sentence you say made no sense to you.. I said 'under scrutiny it is always present' because whatever I think about is something I try to comprehend and grasp and if it wasn't there I couldn't observe it - any clearer? that 'ether' idea i refer to was touched on in the youtube link I posted earlier what is nothing?
I guess speculation can be fruitful when 'theories' are tested, maybe time will tell?
Nothing is word. A word that can mean a great many things, but within the context of this thread, attempting to hypostatize it's most literal meaning into some sort of physical reality is mere Munchausenian.
I watched it a long time ago. I think it portrays NOTHING in a negative light - a destroyer - and that's how people generally see it. But, what of the positive aspects of NOTHING? Is NOTHING the prime evil in this world or does it also contain, within it, the seed of a new beginning?
Quoting Myttenar
Yes, this is a problem with the definition of NOTHING - as NOT ANYTHING or NONEXISTENCE. But, properties need not be limited to only existence. As we've seen in this discussion zero is the quantitative property of NOTHING. Taken another way, perhaps numbers aren't properties.
Quoting believenothing
Here you use "nothing" to express the idea that "everything is possible". My English isn't first rate but what about another way of understanding your expression as in "NOTHING is impossible"? On this interpretation you would be saying that there is no such thing as NOTHING. It is this meaning of NOTHING I'm interested in.
Interesting response. Yes the phenomenon of the nothing must also have positive aspects. I think genius like Einstein and Nietzsche for example, as well as authenticity proper is precisely living with a certain openness toward the nothing. That is, disclosing new worlds (being) is only possible on the basis of the nothing. Bare with me. I don't fully understand myself yet... my thoughts aren't crystal clear
I think you are confusing meaning.
There is a difference between 1) I believe in nothing, 2) I believe there is nothing, and 3) I believe nothing.
Just like you said lets put Nothing as (N.).
Mental (M).
Physical (P) But lets talk physical in senses ((Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch)) (P=S)
Ok with this said let me put some other variables under each category and (M), (S) under one category (U) for Universe
*(M)
-Life (LM), Death (DM), Time (TM), Space (SM), Thoughts ((Good, evil, peace, war, fate, faith, hunger, sickness, family, religion, creation, destination, end, reality, perspective, relativity, high or low etc)) (TS),
*(S)
--Life (LS), Death (DS), Time (TS), Space (SS), Senses ((Good, evil, peace, war, fate, faith, hunger, sickness, family, religion, creation, destination, end, reality, perspective, relativity, high or low etc)) (SSS),
If we start considering that (M) and (S) conform the Universe (U), we need to start digging to find how can (N.) exist in the (E), but that seems impossible because if theres something, nothing already doesn't exist.
But theres something weird going on, I'm using one word to much in the last paragraph "exist", thats a whole new realm, Existence (E).
Now I'm about to enter into the super duper really interesting stuff, so if you really want to know whats the Nothing I need you to be open to all possibilities, only use ur previous knowledge to find out ur own thoughts about it and how can u get there, but never to say that its not truth.
The Nothingness (N.) is not something that exist here in (U) they are each other counter parts!
If we consider (U) the infinite creator of everything (M)(S), it doesn't have an end or neither beginning, is infinite with everything in it, everything that will ever be, and everything that will ever come, all past, all present, and all future, we can assume that at this moment we are at the pick of how big the (U) is, but we are also the smallest we will ever be, how come (U) that its everything create (N.).
So if (U) can't create (N.) because the moment something is created, (N.) is no longer (N.), and (N.) never existed because then if at some moment (N.) was (N.) and then (U) it was just (U-TM-TS), it becomes something that was always part of (U) that it seemed to be (N.), this means that if (N.) really exist it has to be outside of (U).
So in order for (N.) to exist it has to be outside (U), which would mean that (N.) and (U) are counterparts,
both are Existence (E)
Aight this might seem a little weird because I'm changing the style of writing to fit more to what my brain is trying to help you with this question,
Once upon a time i though that life was everything that there is, it was the biggest thing ever, life was me and life was everything, so I thought if i was life it self I was God, but thinking that life was all that there is was so foolish of me, I was so naive to think that God was alive or dead, I was so stupid really to think God needed life hahahaha, how stupid! I had planed my hole philosophy in the search of the truth of life, wanting to create my one government with the ideal of the whole propose of the nation and its people to find LIFE to be LIFE, that would have been the main mission to give people to the the answer of where life comes from ( before I thought it was God).
But now I know for sure that God didn't create anything. But GOD DOES exist and its PERFECTION the PERFECTION that can only come from nothingness.
Theres a saying that u most have heard for sure and it goes like this " nothing is perfect", before I just to really use this other quote to emphasize that life was every thing " the only thing for sure in life is dead" i use this quote to explain that life was everything because for death to exist there needs to be life first, but if I Use this same process with this "NOTHING IS PERFECT" the only thing perfect is nothing or the nothingness, but if you also have really paid attention, I wrote this on this same paragraph "in order for dead to exist theres need to be life first", if you have paid attention theres a particular word on this quote and it is "EXIST" so therefore in order for life to Exist there should be EXISTENCE!
So if existence exist before life, this comes to be the realm of GOD (using god as the answer to what science can't) but what is existence then if its bigger than life and death, and if its greater than life and death, does this means existence is also greater than space, time, reality? Yes but theres also a limit to what it is not greater than, the Universe. or is it?
Lets talk about the UNIVERSE, the universe is everything that its and everything that will ever be, or is it? If light exist theres also darkness, if life exist theres also death, and if The UNIVERSE exist (which is everything) there should be the Nothingness!
Plato and Aristotle just to discuss weather we come from our reasoning or our senses, weather we had an idea first which comes from the perfect idea or we had our senses provide us with the first image in our brain, this made me have a crazy though what would have been in side somebodies brain that doesn't have any senses, does he have anything in there? I realize that if anything was in there its GOD! Existence, in the NOTHINGNESS
In my OP I've given a rough outline of how NOTHING is useful to us; from simplifying expressions (e.g. using ''nothing is perfect'' instead of ''everything is imperfect'') to setting boundaries (e.g. ''nothing is taller than mount Everest'').
Could it be that I'm making a mistake by trying to understand NOTHING when it could be that ''nothing'' is only a grammatical entity like ''the'' or ''on''?
Thanks for your post. I must confess I didn't understand it completely. Why did you introduce God into the discussion? If I'm correct most religious folks would say that NOTHING is the opposite of God, who is EVERYTHING.
Quoting TheMadFool
I suggest you, to not underestimate Nothing/anything.
Quoting TheMadFool
Perhaps they will share their thougths on this intrtesting topic.
This qustion is for everyone who is intrested in it:
Is it possible that Nothing is the source of Everything?
Nothing is simply undiscovered I recon.
Nothing isn't, in fact.
I'm kidding.
Nothing is an idea. That's it. That's all it is. "Nothing" is how we conceptualize an absence of a specific thing or things within a given context. The confusion here seems to stem from the paradox of "nothing" being a conceptual "something," (an idea), because perhaps you imagine it to mean "the total absence of all things." It's doesn't. And even if it did, it's a self-defeating definition. It deteriorates into nonsense: you can't describe a thing that by definition must be indescribable. It's kind of like trying to count to infinity.
Most ideas are indescribable really, why should 'nothing' be singled out? I like your slant.
Saying something is indescribable is just a (confusing) way to describe it.. Whatever 'nothing' is or isn't, depends on the context - we seem to agree there. When you describe an idea or define it, it somehow loses something in translation. After-all, however simple an idea might seem to one person, any attempt to explain it is always open to interpretations.
So, if we stick to the philosophical context, it refers to the absence of Ideas?
I understand the problem. NOTHING, defined as nonexistence, is difficult to grasp. We're in the habit of or are confined to understanding in terms of attributes/properties which, by far, are positive in nature. What I mean is we need some attributes that are attached to a concept or object and only then do we even begin to understand them. However, unlike most objects (mental/physical) NOTHING is defined in the negative. In fact it is the ultimate negative - the absence of everything. In a way we could say "There's NOTHING to understand."
However, I'd like to understand NOTHING. This probably doesn't make sense give what I've said above but I have commented on how math can make sense of NOTHING by equating it to zero. One member said that there's a difference between NOTHING and zero. The former has NO properties while zero has many mathematical properties. So, zero, strictly speaking, is not actually NOTHING. We could say, then, that zero is the quantitative property of NOTHING. Are we getting somewhere?
NOTHING can also be understood as setting the boundaries of classes/categories. Everything in our finite world sits between extremes - smallest-biggest, shortest-tallest, God-Devil, etc. In such a finite world, NOTHING sets boundaries to classes/categories. For instance, NOTHING is more powerful than God. NOTHING is taller than mount Everest, etc. Can we then assign this boundary demarcating property to NOTHING?
NOTHING is NOT an idea for the simple reason that ideas exist in our minds while NOTHING is nonexistence. I think "nothing", the word, is quite different from other words. Other words have physical/mental referents but "nothing", by definition, lacks any referent. NOTHING [s]exists[/s] beyond the mental and the physical.
If "NOTHING" does not exist as an idea, then how are we discussing it?
You are correct. There is NOTHING to understand, because as I stated before, NOTHING as you understand it has no properties and inherently is indescribable.
How does it make sense to describe the number zero as a "property" of NOTHING? They are two completely disparate concepts-- zero, in fact, more closely resembles my definition of NOTHING. It is purely ideological, and represents, in different contexts, different degrees and types of absence. Your NOTHING is nothing more than a semantic paradox; it has nothing to do with zero, and is more analogous to the Liar Paradox. It is a self-referential logical error.
Perhaps it is the most sophisticated idea of the nonexistent, don't you think?
Quoting bioazer
As I continue to struggle with finding a good way to answer this question 'what is nothing?', I begin to see that it has a lot to do with grammar, which was never my forte. Strictly philosophically, I would say nothing is a substitute. If you don't comprehend, then perhaps there is nothing where your understanding should be? It seems sensible to describe nothing as an absence of ideas, yes - philosophically.
NOTHING, as @TheMadFool correctly stated earlier, is a completely negative concept.
So it follows that we cannot describe NOTHING in positive terms. In other words, we cannot say what nothing is; we can only describe what it is not, which is literally anything.
For example,
NOTHING is not a slice of pie.
NOTHING is not green.
NOTHING is not a concept that we can discuss or even think of.
NOTHING is not what I think it is, and it's not what you think it is.
NOTHING is not what I am presently writing a post about.
Whatever you call it, what we are discussing in this thread is not NOTHING. If you can think of it, and you can label it with a name, and you can talk about it's properties or even lack thereof, it's not NOTHING. The NOTHING I insist it is not is not even NOTHING. And neither is that last one. And so forth. It is unapprehendable and incomprehensible.
Interesting point-- and correct, but that person would be unable to think of it in the first place.
No one ever experiences Nothing. So, in a metaphysics that's about individual experience, there's no such thing.
Michael Ossipoff
Good point. Look at it this way. We have the word ''gravity''. It points to a physical phenomenon which I will approximate as an attractive force between two bodies. We can say we have a concept of gravity but the concept itself isn't gravity.
Similarly, NOTHING is a concept of nonexistence but the concept itself isn't nonexistence. Am I right?
The idea is NOT the ideated.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
What were you before you were born?
Quoting TheMadFool
There's a Mark Twain quote that I like:
"I was dead for millions of years before I was born, and it didn't inconvenience me a bit."
I like it, but it isn't what I'd say.
If you believe that you didn't exist in any sense before you were born, then that time isn't in your experience, and therefore, in an experiential metaphysics, there was no such time. And that answers that question.
But I don't say it that way.
I've been saying that the reason why you're in a life is because, among the inevitable infinity of life-experience possibility-storys, there's one in which you're the protagonist. There isn't/wasn't any "you" other than that. This life of yours is that possibility-story and you're that protagonist.
And I suggest that that's true whether or not there's reincarnation, and whether or not you had a previous life.
As I've said elsewhere, I claim that reincarnation is unprovable, and that, if there's reincarnation, the matter of whether or not you've already had lives is indeterminate--It isn't true that you either did or didn't.
It seems to me that there's probably reincarnation, because it's implied by an uncontroversial metaphysics.
Michael Ossipoff
What about the experience of loss, lack, dread, angst? Perhaps these experiences point to a primordial preconceptual phenomenal aquantiance with nothing. It is true we never experience an objectified present-at-hand nothing since everything that is objectified in this way is a something rather than a nothing. But why do we need to objectify nothing and turn it into a something? For pragmatic reasons i guess. In other words because objectified derivatives of nothing such as not, minus, zero, but, etc help us to get around in our worlds...
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Does it have any kind of limitation?
Ii doubt that.
To me, that sounds pessimistic. Loss, lack,and dread are all firmly part of the world of things and events. As for angst, that's just an ill-defined affliction limited to some philosophers.
But yes, you're right when you suggest that, though we never really experience Nothing, there's at least one time when we approach it.
As I've often said, at the end of lives, at the latest stage of shutdown, just before full shutdown of awareness, we probably don't remember that there ever was such a thing as worldly life, body, identity, events or time. ...or such things as menace, loss, lack, or dread.
That's why I disagree with your suggestion of implicating or blaming Nothing, for those negative feelings.
On the contrary, I suggest that, to the extent that we approach Nothing, we're free of those negativities.
As I've said, of course at the late stage of shutdown that I referred to above, full shutdown of awareness (our complete shutdown from the point of view of our survivors) is immanent. But we won't know that, or care, because we'll have reached timelessness. The immanence of complete shutdown is therefore quite irrelevant and meaningless from our point of view.
A life is finite. Even if we live a finite number of finite lives, that's still finite. ...while the approach to Nothing at the end of lives is timeless.
One dictionary definition of "Natural" is "usual or ordinary". Well, which is more "usual", something finite, or something timeless?
So, arguably the timeless sleep at the end of lives is what's natural, and maybe our lives in this changeful temporal world of events should be called the "Supernatural". :D
I've been saying that our world of experience is a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, consisting of a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals. I call that "something", and "real", because it's real in the context of our (temporary, finite) lives.
But, due to its temporariness and finiteness, could that purely hypothetical system of abstract facts be argued to be less real than the Nothing that we approach, but don't reach, in the timeless sleep at the end of lives?
Michael Ossipoff
Agreed.
I don't say it quite the way Mark Twain did, but it's of interest.
What was there before, and how and why did this life start?
More in a few minutes or about an hour or so.
Michael Ossipoff
Of course they do, when they are unconscious or asleep and not dreaming. If I may relate, it feels like no duration had transpired.
Very interesting.
What was it like? No, I'm not asking for your experience aferwards, when "it feels like no duration has transpired."
I didn't say that you don't experience a time after there was nothing. I said that you don't experience nothing )
So, what was it like when you were experiencing Nothing?
(...given that an experience is of something :D)
Michael Ossipoff
The mind loses consciousness and then somehow issues a spark to regain consciousness. In between there is nothing. One knows they were unconscious due to a discontinuity if memory. Similarity, one feels a similar discontinuity when one enters a dream state.
To understand life, one should study the nature of duration and memory, the key aspects of life.
Earlier today I said:
"What was there before, and how and why did this life start?"
"Before" can be taken to mean "leading to" or "resulting in".
So it's reasonable to say "before", even though time is only there as part of a person's life-experience possibility-story, within that story.
.
As for that possibility-story itself, it was/is timelessly there, as a system of abstract facts.
...before you were born, where "before" is taken to mean "leading to" or "resulting in".
That system of inter-referring abstract facts was all that would be needed.
The reason why this life started for you was that there timelessly was/is a life-experience possibility-story about and for you, from your point of view, with you as its protagonist. So that protagonist was the person who you started as, at the beginning of this life. There wasn't any "you" other than that.
The following reincarnation discussion is conjectural, and not part of my metaphysics though it's implied by it.
At the end of this life, you of course won't be the same person you were at the beginning of this life. There'll be different subconscious inclinations, predispositions, etc. But, most likely, for that person, too, there timelessly is a life-experience possibility story that starts out with/for someone just like that.. If so, then the reason why this life started will still obtain at the end of this life, for the person you are then.
As I've been saying, I claim that it's completely indeterminate in principle (not just unknowable) whether or not you lived a life before this one. It isn't true that you did or didn't.
I suggest that the deeper stage of shutdown that I spoke of earlier, when there's no memory or feelings about life, identity, etc. isn't reached by the person who still has inclinations and predispositions for life.
So I suggest that the timeless sleep at the end of lives is only for those very few life-completed people who have no remaining needs, wants, inclinations or un-discharged consequences.
There isn't time, before dinner, to finish this post, to relate it to what we were talking about. I'll continue tomorrow.
Michael Ossipoff
Please do. Thank you
This would be very close to the beliefs of some Buddhist sects, with all kinds of possible variations.
I find most Buddhists who believe this believe it because they were taught it. Being taught is much different from learning from experience. They yield a qualitative different feeling of knowing.
A genius chipmunk with huge prehensile hands could use it to smash an acorn.
And you mean that in every sense of the word?
It isn't (without its effects).
All I was arguing was that the hammer's being as equipment (which is how we primarily encounter it rather than as an object) is dependent on us and a whole nexus of references to other equipment. A genius chipmunk might be able to use a hammer to smash an acorn, but they could just as well use a rock. A rock and a hammer do not have the same being as equipment even though they are used in identical ways by the genius chipmunk. What is relevant is not merely how something is used/misused, but the tool's relation within the whole equipmental context of significance, which comes about only through our shared ontological understanding of entities.
You might argue that relative to the genius chipmunk the rock and hammer have the same being.... To make that argument you would also have to argue for the claim that a genius chipmunk is ontological and has it's own understanding of being. But how can you make such an argument since you are moving beyond your own phenomenology?
What I was saying yesterday, I was saying because any discussion about what was before (leading to, resulting in) birth, needs some metaphysical framework or background about that, if metaphysics applies to it. It seems to me that we should, to the extent possible, explain things verbally. If something admits of verbal, logical, factual explanation, then that explanation should be said, before resorting to saying that it’s indeterminate or unknowable.
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We often hear people instead wanting to just invoke direct work by God, for things like the creation of the Earth, and the creation of the human species. …skipping the effort to explain as much as we can in discussable verbal logical terms that are accessible to us. Shouldn’t we verbally explain as much as possible first?
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So, there’s a physical mechanism for the creation of the Earth and of the human species. People here would tell a Biblical Literalist that God needn’t have contravened his physical laws to create the Earth and the human species, but could have done so via those laws.
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At the next level from physics, I say the same thing about metaphysics. When someone wants to invoke unknowability and indeterminacy in metaphysics, I emphasize that definite uncontroversial things can be said about metaphysics, and that we should explain what we can before invoking unknowability or indeterminacy.
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(Admittedly there’s some indeterminacy in some topics of metaphysics, though, for the most part, definite uncontroversial things can be said.)
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I’ve been claiming that metaphysics has a lot in common with science, with some of the same requirements and desiderata. Statements, claims, should be supported. Definitions should be clearly-specified and consistently-applied. Assumptions, brute-facts, and unfalsifiable unverifiable propositions are suspect, and discredit a theory, especially if there’s a different proposal that doesn’t have or need those things.
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And we should express such explanations when they’re available, before asserting unknowability or indeterminacy.
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But I also emphasize that there’s no reason to believe that metaphysics, verbal discussion or logic describes or governs all of Reality (any more than physics does).
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Therefore, metaphysics doesn’t contradict Theism, and shouldn’t be objectionable to Theists or, in general, to philosophers who don’t believe that all of Reality is knowable, determinate and discussable. …any more than physics.
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We explain what we can, and that’s our job, our responsibility—but without believing that we can explain all of Reality.
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Now, about what was before (in the sense of leading to or resulting in) our birth:
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Based on what I said yesterday, I don’t think that there was any Nothing for us, before our birth. The fact that there was you or I results from that timeless life-experience possibility-story about our experience.
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There was some early stage with the unconsciousness of ordinary sleep in which we had the subconscious inclinations, predispositions, feelings, that were those of the person we were later born as.
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I don’t think we go back any farther than that.
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Sure, of course non-contradiction among our experiences implies that we of course hear that there were earlier stages and events, going all the way back to biology, ancestry, evolution, and all the way back to the formation of this galaxy—all of which are implied by and can be inferred from the fact that we’re here.
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I emphasize that all that I said yesterday, and here too, is from a 3rd-person objective point-of-view that doesn’t say anything about what all that was really like. …something that we’d only know from experience, for as far back as we can remember.
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Michael Ossipoff
Yes, and Vedanta, and Hinduism in general, too.
I claim that there's no memory of past lives (and that, in fact, they're completely indeterminate), and so no one knows about reincarnation from experience.
Sure, there are traditions, teachings, about those matters, that go back for millennia. That doesn't discredit them.
I claim that what I've been saying about those subjects is implied by an uncontroversial metaphysics.
Michael Ossipoff
People most definitely come into their lives with different "abilities".
What kind of definite uncontroversial things can be said?
I'm not blaming anything on anything. I'm just interested in the juxtaposition of being and nothing. I haven't thought it through properly but being (which I understand in a purely Heideggerian way as that on the basis of which entities are intelligible and determined as entities) and nothing are probably two sides of the same coin. For example, you can only unconceal the hidden being of entities upon the background of further concealment of being as Heidegger articulates in his phenomenology. Unconcealment requires concealment. That probably doesnt make any sense without examples... for example, a stupidly simple example, for a hammer to be truly unconcealed as ready to hand (being), its properties as physical occurrent object (being) must become backgrounded or concealed (nothing). Perhaps this concealment, or retreating of being, is nothing? Please don't bother criticising me as I haven't thought it through, or even come to terms with it yet...
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I disagree. I think this "immanence" is the most important aspect of our whole being. This immanence, our mortality, is not what happens during the process of or after our biological death. It is how we are in life towards our end. We are mortals. Oh Whoops, are you just talking about a deathbed situation? Did you mean to type imminence rather than immanence? As you may know, I am a Heidegger nut. And Heidegger suggests of death something like that it is our most pre-eminent possibility, and that our most pre-eminent possibility's imminence is immanent...
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
You've lost me. I don't see how experience is hypothetical. There are hypothetical aspects involved with solving problems. However, for the most part, life is not a problem.
I’d said:
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You asked:
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1. There are abstract if-then facts.
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People can debate whether they’re “real”, whatever that means. (I don’t take a position on that) People can argue about whether there would be abstract facts if there were no experiencers.
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But no one denies that there are abstract if-then facts.
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2. There couldn’t have not been abstract if-then facts.
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Some argue against that by saying that there’d be no abstract facts if there were no experiencers. But that doesn’t follow.
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Among the infinity of complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts, there is, of course, one such system whose events and relations are those of your experience. And there are inevitably infinitely many other similar complex logical systems that, likewise, are about the experience of an experiencer.
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I claim that it’s obvious and uncontroversial that an inter-referring system of abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals needn’t have any objective reality or meaning outside of its own inter-referring context, and doesn’t need any medium in which to be, or any global context or permission for there to be abstract facts.
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What would it even mean to say that there could have not been such if-thens, or inter-referring systems of them? There’d have to have obtained, a fact that there are no facts other than that one fact that there are no other facts. That would be a special brute-fact, calling for an explanation, but not having one (How could it, if there are no other facts?).
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The burden of proof is on the person who claims that there could have been such a preposterous brute-fact, having, somehow, by some unspecified unsupported global interconnection, the global authority to rule out all other facts.
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Anyway, I don’t think it’s even meaningful to speak of the existence or “is-ness” of abstract if-then facts. Someone wanting to deny them that would have to specify just what they mean by such a claim.
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Such systems aren’t without an experiencer, because I’m specifically referring ones that are about the experience of an experiencer.
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The experiencer, and his/her experience-story are complementary parts of the same system, and timelessly, together, “are”. So, for the question of whether there could have not been abstract if-then facts, we needn’t concern ourselves with the issue of whether there would have been abstract facts if there’d been no experiencers.
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(There’s also the issue of whether abstract if-then facts are independent of experiencers, but that’s a separate issue, for a different post. I take the extreme Realist position that they are, and I’ll tell why in another post, but that isn’t necessary for the conclusion that there couldn’t have not been abstract facts—for the reason described above.)
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3. Then there couldn’t have not been complex systems of inter-referring abstract facts about hypotheticals, such as the one whose events and relations are those of your experience.
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4. Because every fact about our physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact, and also is the “if “ premise of some if-then facts, and the “then” conclusion of other if-then facts, then there’s no particular reason to believe that your experience is other than the logical system described in the paragraph before this one.
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…even though it can’t be proven that the Materialist’s objectively, fundamentally, existent physical world doesn’t superfluously exist, as an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside, and duplicating the events and relations of, the complex logical system that I’ve referred to. **
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Is there anything there that anyone would disagree with? If not, then it’s uncontroversial.
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So metaphysics isn’t the speculative, indeterminate, subject that some claim that it is.
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(Yes, the paragraph above, ending with two asterisks (**), tells of an indeterminacy. I don’t claim that there’s no indeterminacy in metaphysics. But what I said above, which includes that indeterminacy, is a definite and uncontroversial statement.)
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Michael Ossipoff
However, should one`s mind be blank at any point in time one is thinking about nothing, so nothing exists on their conscious mind. One might of course argue that the empty mind also exists as a gap.between two places of mind.
I’d said:
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You replied:
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I just meant that the end of lives, when we approach Nothing, is a time without those negative things that you mentioned.
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A person could argue that a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals isn’t very real. I don’t take a position about that.
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The Nothing that is the quiescent background for the system of abstract facts that is a person’s life-experience possibility-story, that Nothing, could be argued to be more real than the possibility-stories.
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I consider our lives and experience “real” because …well, because it’s our experience. But I realize that it could be argued that, if the possibility-stories’ reality is questioned, then Nothing could be left as the only metaphysically real thing.
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Because an approach to Nothing is where we end up at the end of lives, and because the sleep at the end of lives doesn’t have a definite, limited, measurable length, then arguably that sleep at the end of lives is the really natural and normal state of affairs for us, instead of this brief temporary life in a world of time and events.
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I’d said:
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Of course, the fact of our mortality is with us every day.
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Yes.
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Yes. I didn’t know that there were both of those two words. I thought that there was just “immanence”, and that it had the meaning that (now that you’ve pointed it out) the dictionary gives for “imminence”.
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I had no idea that there was a word “imminent”. I thought that the word with that meaning, was spelled “immanent”.
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And the evident derivation from “manere” didn’t tell me different, because there’s often a great distance, and a roundabout route, and little if any recognizable relation, between a word’s meaning and the meaning of a word that it’s derived from.
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Who’d have guessed that there was a “imminere“, to project or threaten, from a word “minere”, and related to the verb “mount” and the word “mountain”?
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Anyway, yes I meant “imminent”.
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I was referring to a time when complete shutdown is near.
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No disagreement with that. It’s the unavoidable destination and conclusion of a person’s life. And, because that sleep at the end of lives is how things end up for us, and doesn’t have some measurable finite length (as our lives do), that end is arguably the more normal and natural state of affairs for us, in comparison to our temporary life in the world of time and events.
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I’d said:
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But can you show that a person’s world and its events aren’t hypothetical?
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Any fact about this physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact:
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“There’s a traffic roundabout at 34th & Vine.”
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“If you go to 34th & Vine, you’ll encounter a traffic roundabout.”
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Additionally any fact about this physical world is the “if “ premise of some if-then facts, and the “then” conclusion of other if-then facts.
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A set of hypothetical physical quantity-values, and a hypothetical relation among them (known as a “physical law”) are parts of the “if” premise of an if-then fact.
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…except that one of those quantity-values can be taken as the “then” conclusion of that if-then fact.
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Obviously, a physical quantity-value can be part of an if-premise, and part of a “then” conclusion.
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Sure, our declarative, indicative grammar is convenient for describing things and events of this world. But the world can likewise be described by conditional grammar. …and that, and the world of “If” that it describes, suggests a metaphysics that doesn’t need a brute-fact, or any assumptions. …unlike the big brute-fact of Materialism’s unexplained world.
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So we regard the world indicatively and declaratively, out of grammatical habit. …and as a result of lifelong conversation and early teaching.
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Michael Ossipoff
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Space isn't nothing. It's part of the physical world, a physical quantity, an attribute of the physical world.
And physicists tell us that "empty" space is teeming with virtual particles, coming into and out of existence.
Yes, an interesting idea, one of many interesting ideas from India.
Michael Ossipoff
http://esemenyhorizont.uw.hu/2000/teremto0.html
http://szotar.sztaki.hu/magyar-angol-szotar
Sure, something in life.
I demand a recount! :D
Some say that there's something positively good about the absence of the negative.
I'll take that into account when I write a TV soundbite for you.
People who make a 1-line or 1-paragraph unsupported assertion like to try to make a virtue of that.
Michael Ossipoff
If you are doing anything for the BBC perhaps you could help, they might be interested in my repeated serious physical world record braking attempts, often successful, at least the director of TOWIE, might well be, and perhaps especially as I`m a friend of Charlie Kings. He is rejoining the show as there personal trainer, Perhaps made more interesting as it would embrace my real world teenage following, and coupled with the fact of my being in my sixties It could definitely give a much required boost both to the shows following and to their lives. I am possibly the only person in the country that runs mile on end whilst dragging weights and simultaneously training his upper body. The young following, come friends, would definitely become a talking point. Much of society do n`t even believe such a scenario possible. It all happens only a short distance behind his old house, in The Benfleet Road.
But how can it be more "natural" for us when we are not, or are no longer? I mean, death is when we cease being the distinct entities that we are. We cease being an entity altogether. We are no longer. There is no 'us' for something to qualify as a natural state for.
Moreover, sleep is only ever something we do, or something that happens to us, when we are. So I think it is misleading to use it as a metaphor for death. It could lead to unclarity.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Sorry I think you have the burden of proof here, not me. The reason is that it is highly implausible that we experience life hypothetically and/or factually. Myself, and the people within my shared culture, experience the world in terms of familiarity and significance.
When I'm running for the train, for example, I do not think of a hypothetical or a fact. To do so I would first need to abstract from and reflect on the situation. There is never an experience like this. Instead I am completely caught up in the situation and this is grounded in my familiarity with catching trains. I know how to catch trains and know how to catch a train that I'm running late for. I am fully involved. I am the situation. In a sense there is no I, there is only the situation, when I am so fully involved.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Again, this is not how we experience our world. Why? because the way you have expressed this, the roundabout is meaningless and abstracted from everyday experience. It has no significance. For example, someone who is lost and following directions does not go to 34th & Vine to encounter a roundabout, they go there only in order to get onto the road they need to get on to. It is significant to them for that reason. Or, someone who is familiar with the roundabout probably more readily experiences the frustrations of driving in traffic with idiots, or thinking about the discussion they had that morning with their partner, than their surroundings (including the roundabout) as such. Perhaps they are so utterly familiar with the roundabout and their drive to work that they don't even consciously notice it. This happens all the time for me in the flow of life. Notice that in this latter example the person went to 34th & Vine but didn't encounter a roundabout. At least not in a consciously aware factual manner (present-at-hand in Heidegger speak), which is what I take you to mean here by "encounter".
I’d said:
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You replied:
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No, I haven’t been talking about that time. The time when you’ve completely shut-down won’t be experienced by you. For you, there’s no such time. The time when you’re gone will be experienced only by your survivors.
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You’ll never experience a time without experience.
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I was referring to the sleep at the end of lives (or at the end of this life if you don’t believe in reincarnation).
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What makes the sleep at the end of lives more natural and normal, is the fact that it’s your final outcome, your final state of affairs, and is timeless.
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See above.
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…and I was talking about sleep, when we still are.
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Of course, it’s a time when we’re approaching Nothing. But we won’t know that, because, as I said, by then we won’t know that there are such things as worldly life, body, identity, time or events. The impending end will be quite meaningless and irrelevant, because we won’t know or care about it.
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I hope that, above in this post, I’ve clarified what I meant.
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I’d said:
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You replied:
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I think not. I’ve told why.
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If, as I’ve discussed, our experience is consistent with a hypothetical system of if-thens, and if you could interpret it either way, then which interpretation requires the assumption of a brute-fact?
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Let me quote myself:
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“Among the infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals, there inevitably must be one whose events and relations are those of your experience.
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“There’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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“I can’t prove that the concretely, objectively, fundamentally existent physical world of Materialism doesn’t superfluously exist, as an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, that system of inter-referring if-thens referred to above.”
It’s customarily agreed that brute-facts, unnecessary assumptions, and unverifiable unfalsifiable propositions are suspect."
Of course. I didn’t mean to denigrate or deny suchness, presence, direct experience, etc.
You find out about the logical, factual matters when you check for them. …and, when you do, you’ll find that your experience is self-consistent. But I’m not implying that you spend all your time with logic, facts, etc.
I often emphasize that metaphysics is to experience and Reality, as a book on how a car-engine works is to actually taking a ride in the countryside.
Logic, and statements, descriptions or evaluations about facts, aren’t, and don’t describe, experience and Reality.
Logic, physics and metaphysics don’t cover, describe, or govern Reality.
But I’m talking about a metaphysics.
The fact that metaphysics isn’t everything doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t talk about it. I find it of interest.
Metaphysics is the limit of what can be discussed and described.
Of course. No argument there. See above.
I’d said:
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You reply:
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Again, this is not how we experience our world. Why? because the way you have expressed this, the roundabout is meaningless and abstracted from everyday experience. It has no significance. For example, someone who is lost and following directions does not go to 34th & Vine to encounter a roundabout, they go there only in order to get onto the road they need to get on to. It is significant to them for that reason. Or, someone who is familiar with the roundabout probably more readily experiences the frustrations of driving in traffic with idiots, or thinking about the discussion they had that morning with their partner, than their surroundings (including the roundabout) as such. Perhaps they are so utterly familiar with the roundabout and their drive to work that they don't even consciously notice it. This happens all the time for me in the flow of life. Notice that in this latter example the person went to 34th & Vine but didn't encounter a roundabout. At least not in a consciously aware factual manner (present-at-hand in Heidegger speak), which is what I take you to mean here by "encounter".
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I have no disagreement with that. Sometimes you don’t experience the facts unless you’re looking for them. But, when you do, you’ll find facts that aren’t inconsistent with the other facts of your experience. That’s why your life is a possibility-story instead of an impossibility-story.
Philosophy, the topic of these forums, is about matters that are verbal, discussable, describable.
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But I emphatically agree that Reality isn’t about logic, metaphysics or physics.
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But explanations of the logical underpinnings and background of our lives are still of interest. …without any implication that they’re the complete explanation or background for Reality.
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Whether or not any of us like it, we still deal with facts, states of affairs, situations. Their verbal explanation and logical factual background can be of interest. As humans, we deal with logical factual matters whether we like it or not. It’s only a matter of how we deal with it.
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We can worry unnecessarily or excessively, when we take the facts too literally, believing in the “concrete” fundamental objective existence of the physical world. Obviously we must deal with the physical world, and take care of ourselves in that world, but we also tend to worry too much, unproductively, unnecessarily.
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I’ve said this before, but let me say it again.
By the metaphysics that I propose, what is discussable and describable is insubstantial and ethereal. Of course we do our best, and, whether we admit it or not, we enjoy our lives. But this temporary life is insubstantial, so just enjoy it while it lasts, and do your best.
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I suggest that my metaphysics implies an openness, looseness, and lightness. …in contrast to Materialism’s grim “objective” accounting.
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So no, I don’t mean to say that you always live in logic, facts, verbal description, etc. But, when you visit them, they aren’t as bad as you’ve been taught. In fact they’re pretty good.
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Metaphysics is a verbal discussion about what logically, factually is. What factually is, is pretty good.
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Michael Ossipoff
No.
For one thing, as I told Bloodninja, facts, logic, physics and metaphysics don't cover, describe, or govern all of Reality.
In fact, even in the matters that metaphysics does describe, there's still wonder.
I've told a metaphysical explanation or reason for why you're in a life. Does that mean that there's nothing wonderous, remarkable or astonishing about the fact that you're in a life?
Michael Ossipoff
- "NOTHING is what it looks like (N)?"
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Interesting... On the whole possibility/impossibility idea Heidegger has a lot to say. However, he is talking about ontological rather than derivative factual possibilities/impossibilities.
Would you agree that facts are derivative? In other words that facts depend on a certain articulation of the being of the entities that constitute the particular fact. The particular fact itself being another entity. Or even clearer, that facts are derived from a basic presupposed articulation of the intelligibility of the entities that are engaged with (i.e. used, manipulated, repaired, programmed, thought, spoken). Or yet again, that 'knowing that' (fact) is derivived from 'knowing how' (skillful coping).
I regard inevitable abstract facts as the basis of metaphysical reality. (...but not of overall Reality, which isn't explainable, describable discussable, arguable or provable.).
The person (or other animal), and hir surroundings together constitute a complementary system. ...a life-experience possibility-story consisting of complex system of inter-referring abstract facts about hypotheticals.
That logical system is independent of anything else, and doesn't need to be "real" or "existent" in any context other than its own inter-referring context. ...and doesn't need any larger context or medium in which to be.
People express an issue about whether there could be abstract facts without observers. That issue doesn't affect this metaphysics, because it's about a system of abstract facts that includes an experiencer, and which, in fact, is about that experiencer's experience.
But, just as a matter of fact, i suggest that abstract facts don't depend on the experiencer. Otherwise, why is it that logic and mathematics would be the same everywhere--in any country, on any continent, on any planet, in any universe?
(Sure, different societies would investigate some different (and some same) parts of mathematics.)
Michael Ossipoff
It's as close to Nothing as anyone could ask for.
Michael Ossipoff
The deep sleep at the end of lives is an arrival into Nothing (but we never experience the absence of experience).
...comfortable, restful, peaceful.
...but, knowing your position regarding life, I should emphasize that one can't regard the end as the whole desideratum (though I claim that it's the most natural, normal and typical part of our experience--and arguably Nothing is the most real element of metaphysics.).
If a person regards life as a matter of waiting for the end of life, then his/her death won't be better than his/her life.
Rajneesh pointed that out. Whatever anyone might think of him, in some regards, he still said some good things.
Nisargadatta said that birth is a calamity. Well, you're in a life because you're the protagonist in one of the infinitely-many hypothetical life-experience possibility-stories. Therefore, it would be quite meaningless to speak of the person distinct from the life. The person, by his/her very nature, is in the life.
If there's reincarnation (and I believe that there probably is), then you'll probably be in subsequent additional lives too..
...with the end-of-lives occurring only for the rare life-completed person.
...a rather fearsome proposition, given what we know about this world. But maybe other worlds aren't like this one. Anyway, maybe lives will be easier if we don't take them so seriously, interpreting them in the spirit of Lila..
But, returning to the topic of deep-sleep:
Have you ever had the experience of waking from a dream in which you knew something that was really important,and really, indescribably, good, but not remembering what it was?
A number of people report that experience. Spiritual teachers say that it wasn't a dream. They say that you were waking from deep-sleep, and experiencing a rare memory of it.
Michael Ossipoff
Nevertheless, you haven't shown that logic and mathematics are ultimately not derived from us and our shared understanding of being. All you have shown is that logic and mathematics are not relative to one's specific culture. The same is true of physics, biology, and some people suggest this of the virtues, etc.
It seems that mathematics and logic are derivative of a primordial phenomenon, our shared understanding of being.
Or are you suggesting that mathematics and logic are this shared understanding of being?
But, if logic and mathematics are the same for everyone, everywhere, anytime, even in other universes or possibility-worlds, then doesn't that mean that there must be a meaningful sense in which they "are there", independent of minds? How else could they be the same for everyone, everywhere, everywhen?
That isn't true of physics.
Tegmark says that, even within our Big-Bang Universe, the constants of physics might be different in different distant regions, So physics would be different. Different possibility-worlds could have entirely different laws of physics.
For the reasons stated above, logic and mathematics seem independent of understanders.
I claim that logic--abstract if-then facts in particular--are the basic metaphysical element in metaphysical worlds such as the infinitely-many hypothetical individual life-experience possibility-stories.
The only metaphysical element that could be called more basic, would be Nothing itself, the quiescent background of the abstract facts and systems of them.
Michael Ossipoff
Yes, .as affairs are now, there are definitely timeless abstract facts. There never was just Nothing and never could be.
Well,some people want to say that it could have been otherwise, or ask why there's something instead of nothing, My answer has to do with the fact that a system of abstract if-then facts is quite independent of and isolated from anything outside its own local inter-referring system.
So I don't think it makes sense to say that there could have been only Nothing, with no abstract facts or local systems of inter-referring facts, because abstract facts don't depend on some global permission for them. They don't need a global medium, like some kind of potting-soil.
In other words, there's no such a thing as a global medium or context in which could obtain a fact that says that there are no other facts other than that fact that there are no other facts. Such a fact couldn't have any global authority or jurisdiction, because there's no global inter-relating medium for it, For all would-be facts to be banned by one fact, or to (together) not be, would require that they have some relation among eachother. But they don't.
I suggest that, each individual corresponds to a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, of which s/he is the protagonist. Those stories are timeless, and inevitable. ...an infinite number of them. Each of them independently "is".
Each such story is a complementary system that includes an experiencer and the surroundings in hir (his/her) experience.
I'd say yes. At the end of your life, if the reason why this life started still remains, then wouldn't a life begin again, for the same reason? This life started because you're the protagonist in one of the infinity of timeless life-experience possibility-stories. At the end of this life, your remaining subconscious attributes, inclinations, predispositions, could mean that you're again the protagonist of one of the life-experience possibility-stories. ...not the same one as before, of course, because, by that time you won't be exactly the same person as before.
Time, a common time-scale, doesn't apply between lives.
But i don't think we reach, or even get close to Nothing, between lives.
It seems that the person who will be reincarnated is someone who still has the subconscious wants, needs, or at least inclinations or predispositions for life. Someone who is so life-completed that s/he no longer has such predispositions and inclinations, might be someone who. during the unconsciousness at the end of a life, wouldn't have a cause for the start of a next life, and would approach Nothing as the body's shutdown continued. ...reaching the timeless stage when there really is no memory or knowledge that there was or could be life, identity, events or time.
Michael Ossipoff
Maybe I'm reading too much into what you said about "independent", excuse me if I am... I don't see how systems like mathematics and logic are either external (an interpretation of your use of 'independent') or internal. To me they have to do with the intelligibility (being) in which we dwell. But not 'in' in an internal/external sense, but 'in' in a meaningful sense as in for example, 'in the moment', 'in a pleasant mood' or 'involved in the activity of'. Even though mathematics and logic do not necessarily give intelligibility to the majority of activities and entities we find ourselves involved with in our daily lives, as systems they give intelligibility to their respective mathematical and logical entities. For example, Pi is intelligible only upon the basis of a system of mathematics, and without such a basis it is completely unintelligible, nothing.
Perhaps our main disagreement is based in this? That you want to 'metaphysically' claim that something 'internal' is somehow 'external', whereas I simply don't see the phenomena of mathematics and logic in an internal/external way.
Can you prove this? I can see what you mean in a "possible worlds" scenario but that is not quite the same as a soul migrating to different bodies. It goes back to the idea of what makes me "me". Can I ever be otherwise? Is that even a legitimate question? I don't think it is. If I was not me, there is/was/will be no me. However, the possibility of a person can be projected, though this is not the same as the possibility can be actualized by just any birth-related event. It would have to be that birth related event to be me.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Possibly. But this just speaks to the fact that, every night, people mostly look forward to this blissful state of conscious-nothingness. Unfortunately for me, I'm a bad sleeper, so rarely experience this. I'd say that is the ideal state. No stress, no decisions, no suffering, just purely existing. Yes, the brain is doing "something". It is not complete physical-nothingness. However, it is very close to conscious-nothingness. As with birth, what is the point of experiencing at all? What are we really trying to do here in waking life with all this instrumentality of the everyday?
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Yes, I express that by sayings that they’re parts of your experience.
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I suggest that the person and hir (his/her) surroundings are complementary halves of a system—the complex system of inter-referring if-then facts that I call a life-experience possibility-story. …a story about that person’s experience.
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If the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is the same here as in the Andromeda galaxy, and is also the same in the far reaches of this universe, far beyond the edge of the observable universe, even so far away that the physical-constants are different. …and even in different universes physically-related to ours. And even in hypothetical entirely separate possibility-worlds. (…but we can leave out the latter, if anyone objects to discussing them.)
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We could get a radio message from a distant “solar-system”, and find that the message includes a binary expression of the number pi. Other than the surprisingness of someone being out there at all, there’d be nothing surprising about their knowing about pi.
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Everyone expects pi to be the same everywhere in Euclidean space.
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If that fact about the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter is true in all those diverse contexts…
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…and the fact “If all dogs are (or were) mammals, and all mammals are (or were) animals, then all dogs are (or would be) animals” is true in all of those diverse contexts (even where there are no dogs or mammals)…
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…and if the fact “If the additive associative axiom is true, then 2+2=4 (…where 1, 2, 3, & 4 are defined in the obvious way based on the multiplicative identity and addition)” is true in all of those diverse contexts…
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(I’m not saying that all of those things have been observed in all those contexts, but it’s what everyone expects to be so.)
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Now suppose that Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe is investigating that fact.
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He says, “Wait a minute. Is this all just a big coincidence, or is there possibly a connection here? Evidently those abstract facts have some kind of universal truth that’s entirely independent of minds, experiencers. Otherwise, why and how would they be true in all of those diverse contexts, without a really improbable coincidence?”
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I don’ t propose an interpretation or explanation of the nature of the universal truth of those universal abstract facts, other than that they’re universal.
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Of course, Mathematics, logic and the details of physics theories might not be what our usual experience is about. But when we look at or check-out such things, we find a mostly consistent story.
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When there’s a seeming inconstancy, such as Olber’s paradox, the Michaelson-Morely experiment result, the black-body energy-wavelength curve, or the planet Mercury’s seemingly anomalous rotation of apsides, new physics later resolved the seeming inconstancy. A current seeming inconsistency that has yet to be explained/resolved is the acceleration of the recession-speeds of the more distant galaxies.
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In a broader sense, of course physics is full of things that aren’t explained (explanations that, themselves, call for explanation), and some say that it will always remain open-ended.
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But we still find a tendency for consistency in our experience. If you left your shoes under your bed, and they aren’t there, then someone must have moved them, You know that they didn’t just cease to be there without someone moving them, because you expect consistency of experience.
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I suggest that the consistency results from the fact that it’s an experience-story consisting of if-then facts. Mutually inconsistent propositions aren’t facts.
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I’m just saying that it isn’t possible to avoid the conclusion that certain abstract facts have some kind of universality, because how else do you explain our agreed-upon expectation of their being true in such diverse contexts?
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External to experiencers? Yes. How else?
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I guess you could say that all of this is just in my experience (and your experience too) anyway, including the expected (based on experience), but not observed, truth of those abstract facts in those far-away contexts. But there remains something different, for universal abstract facts, compared to less universal things such as laws of physics.
The expected consistency of our experience, if extended to what we could only hypothetically observe (but other possibility-worlds can’t be observable to us even in principle), requires those abstract facts to be true in all those contexts.
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Is that the form of the objection that you mean? It might be a good objection. It hadn’t occurred to me before.
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Anyway, because my metaphysics is about experience-stories, the matter of whether abstract facts are independent of experiencers doesn’t count as an objection to my metaphysics. I just brought it up as a separate issue. …maybe one that I hadn’t looked at thoroughly enough.
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Michael Ossipoff
Part 1 of Reply:
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I’d said:
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I think so, for my metaphysics and for Materialism. I can’t prove that Materialism’s objective fundamentally existent world doesn’t exist, superfluously, as an unverifiable, unfalsiable brute-fact, alongside of and duplicating the events and relations of, the logical system that I describe. But doesn’t Materialism say that you’re the result of your surroundings, and that they’re metaphysically prior to you?
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If some other metaphysics, maybe some Spiritualism or Dualism, is true , then, within that Spiritualism or Dualism, I guess there’d be a soul or spirit, completely independent of hir life and body. So, admittedly, in such a metaphysics, the statement that you asked if I can prove wouldn’t be true.
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So it depends on the metaphysics. I can’t prove that a Spiritualism or Dualism isn’t true, obtaining indistinguishably and superfluously, unverifiably and unfalsifiably, alongside, and duplicating the events and relations of, the logical system of abstract facts that I describe.
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But I appeal to Ockham’s Principle of Parsimony to disqualify, as good explanations, metaphysicses that need assumptions or brute-facts, when there’s one that doesn’t.
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Reincarnation? In my metaphysics, the possibility-world that you live in is just the setting for your life-experience possibility-story, and is secondary to it.
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You and your surroundings are the two complementary non-independent halves of that life-experience possibility-story, a story about your experience.
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Souls aren’t part of my metaphysics. It isn’t a Spiritualism or Dualism.
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But my uncontroversial metaphysics implies reincarnation.
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I’m going to send this now, rather than delay it more.
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Part 2 will be along tomorrow.
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Michael Ossipoff
Part 2 of Reply:
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Probably not, because it depends on what is meant. There’s a sense in which each of us is the same system that we were at the earlier age, like that ship whose parts were all replaced, one at a time, But I don’t even know the person that I was as a child, or even a teenager. I know what some of my values and concerns were, and where I probably got them, but I have no idea how I justified them. I probably never questioned them, but I’m not that person who didn’t, and I don’t know that person.
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There’s no need to say that you’re the same person as before. To me, and some others, “actual” just means “in, or part of, or consisting of, the possibility-world in which the speaker resides”.
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So, from your point of view, you and your surroundings are actual, and it couldn’t be otherwise. By my metaphysics, and by Materialism too, there’s no “You” other than the one that is in this life, because that’s what “You” means.
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But if someone, somewhere, built an exact duplicate of you, that wouldn’t be you. It would just be someone just like you. I think that’s what you were referring to above.
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I’d said:
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But we ordinarily experience it without remembering it later. A memory of it is rare. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t experienced.
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Yes. And I’ve been claiming that it’s the most natural, normal, usual state of affairs for us all, because it’s the final, concluding part of our lives, and is timeless.
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I don’t guarantee that it will be reached at the end of this[ life, because I believe that there’s probably reincarnation, and that nearly all of will be reincarnated.
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…because, if the reason why you’re in a life continues to obtain at the end of this life (you’ll be a different person then than you were at the beginning of this life), then the person who you are then will be in a starting-out life again.
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But if reincarnation happens, that’s because it’s the right and best outcome to follow this life.
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The traditions that speak of reincarnation say that, after some finite number of lives, a person will be life-completed, and won’t have the needs, wants, inclinations, predispositions, etc., that lead to incarnation. That’s when the end-of-lives is. I agree.
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For nearly all of us, that end-of-lives is many lifetimes away.
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You said:
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Yes, and so there could be experience of it, or at least of the time when when the consciousness of ordinary (not deep) sleep is beginning to return, …hence there sometimes (rarely) being a memory of it.
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In the deep-sleep at the end of lives, the state of Nothing is being approached, but not reached. Because the time of no-experience is never reached, then by definition, what precedes it is experienced.
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It’s a time of no awareness of (even the possibility of) person, body, identity, time or events. …or difficulties, problems, fears, needs, wants, or incompletion of any kind.
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I think I have an answer to that:
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The point or reason why this life began is that the story-protagonist who is like the person you subconsciously were at the beginning of this life , was someone who had the needs, wants, inclinations or predispositions for life. You’re in a life because you wanted &/or needed it, or were inclined toward or predisposed to it.
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It’s a hypothetical story, a life-experience story, and there timelessly is one such story whose protagonist is just like you…who is you….as you were at the beginning of this life.
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…and, unless you’ve become fully life-completed during this life, it’s a certainty that what I said in the previous 2 paragraphs will remain true at the end of this life. At the end of this life, as someone different from the person you were at the beginning of this life, but who still has the attributes stated in the previous 2 paragraphs, you’ll again be in the beginning of a life. …because, just as before, you’re the protagonist of one of the infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories.
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So that’s why I say, you’re in a life for a good reason. So like it.
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Yes, I’ve completely written off this world’s chances for improvement, and written off any chance that the inhabitants of this “Land of the Lost” are at all capable of anything better.
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Nevertheless, we’re in life for a reason, and this is the world that we for some reason qualified for, and it’s too late to second-guess that, because it’s just who we were. We must just own-up-to it. And so, being here, we can simply do our best, do what we like, have the life that we like, try to be ethical, non-harmful, and helpful while here. …and try to have a peaceful life, staying out of the way of the rulers.
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We have no choice in that matter.
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Michael Ossipoff
Saying “You’re in a life for a good reason” isn’t the best way to say what I meant. I meant something more like “We’re in life due to an explainable cause that was unavoidable at the time.”
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I can’t prove that there’s reincarnation, and I’m not entirely sure that there is. It seems to me that there likely is, because it’s metaphysically-implied, making it seem more likely than the alternative theory that there’s just one life.
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Anyway, because the Eastern philosophers’ metaphysics has a lot more validity than the Materialism of the Science-Worshippers who say there’s only one life, that makes the Eastern philosophers more credible regarding the matter of reincarnation.
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But, whether there is or not, either way, I claim that our being in a life is the result of who we were, and that it would be meaningless to speak of the person without the start of this life or sequence of lives.
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(And, whether there’s reincarnation or not, it’s possible and convenient to say things like “end of lives”, “sequence of lives”, etc., even if there’s only one of them. It would then just be a “sequence” consisting of only one life.)
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The matter of the advisability or inadvisability of the start of this sequence of lives is a moot point now. Having started, it will continue, either to the end of this life, or to life-completion after many lives.
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Anyway, my point was just that it’s profoundly unrealistic to reject life, and that a life-rejecting-attitude doesn’t help any, and just worsens things, whether there’s reincarnation or not.
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Michael Ossipoff
Negative concepts are defined in relation to one's expectations. The word "nothing" means nothing other than "absence of that which was expected". It must not be taken literally. If I open a box and find "nothing" in it what this means is that what I found in it is not one of those things I was expecting to find. In the same way, non-existence means nothing other than "the kind of existence I was not expecting". That's all it means. I don't think this is difficult to grasp.
Quoting TheMadFool
Zero means "no number of objects of expected type". I say "there are zero apples in front of me" to mean that whatever I see in front of me (e.g. one computer monitor) is not a number of apples equal to or greater than one.
Quoting TheMadFool
"Nothing" refers to that which contradicts our expectations. "There is nothing on the screen" means the screen does not contain what we define to be "something". For example, I might be expecting to see a picture, a video, a text . . . but none of these are present; therefore, nothing is on the screen.
That's another angle to the problem.
What I'm really concerned with is the inability to understand objects without properties. I just returned from a thread on the The Big Bang expansion and someone mentioned "dark energy". According to physicists dark energy is invisible and they're facing a lot of flak about hypothesizing such a thing.
How does one grasp something that is without any attributes? No mass, no size, no volume, no color, no smell, no taste, no instrument readings, absolutely NOTHING.
I presume not. How many senses of the word are there? I'm not sure the list is determinate, nor that I could make myself responsible for all the relevant senses from here to eternity.
It's been a while, but I believe I intended to assert by way of that quip ("Nothing is nothing") the thought that there is no thing that is nothing, there is no x such that x is identical to nothing.
Of course there are concepts of nothing, and correct applications of at least some of those concepts. But a concept of nothing is not identical to its object or its application, any more than a concept of dog is identical to a dog or to a recognition of a dog as a dog.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say that according to its form the ordinary concept of nothing has an application but no object. It seems to me the ordinary concept of nothing is something like a conceptual relation.
You ask me what's in the box. I say "Nothing". I don't mean that a thing called "nothing" is in the box, nor that the box is full of nonexistence, nor that the box encloses a region of space and time devoid of existing entities.... I mean that nothing worth mentioning is in the box, nothing relevant to our conversation, nothing satisfying my interpretation of your intention in asking the question....
One way to translate that reply: None of the things currently in the box are relevant to the conceptual frame established by the question.
Along these lines, the ordinary concept of nothing seems to function very much like the ordinary concept of zero. How many things worth mentioning are in the box? Zero, none.
In this respect the concept of nothing seems to function like a number concept. I would say analogously: There is no x such that x is identical to two. But there's a concept of two that we use to express a conceptual relation without indicating a distinct object corresponding to the concept "two". "There are two beads in the box" expresses a conceptual relation and in appropriate circumstances an objective matter of fact, but does not implicate the thought that there is a thing called "two" in the box, along with things called beads. Two is a conceptual relation, the function of a concept like "beads in this box".
We use concepts of existence and number to make true or false claims about objective matters of fact. It seems to me the (extraordinary) thought that something called Nothingness or Twoness has some additional existence apart from such participation in the conceptual character of minds like ours is an unwarranted gesture of imagination.
It occurs to me that taking a strong stance in support of the line "Nothing is nothing" might seem to commit one to a view according to which existence is some sort of plenum.
In proportion to this physical reality based sense(conception), everything has some kind of mathematically expressible value. Space, time, information, energy, matter.
this is something around it: 0
or, this is nothing: 0
and this is something, around it:
or, perhaps the mass of the examples, together giving us the result what we understand as Nothing.
Or perhaps, neither of these.
For example, you can say colloquially "What do you want from me?", and someone would say "Nothing". You could also answer "I don't need anything from you". The meaning is the same.
When we twist linguistic label and attempt to reify it becomes absurd. You can't give an example of nothing :). It's an self-negating term that only exists as a fictional preponderance if you take it and use it in some philosophical context that assumes that there is some "state of reality" where things are absent.
In physics and some viable philosophical thought, "nothing" is more synonymous with "chaos", meaning that there is no consistently identifiable structure that you can examine and identify as consistent. It's nothing, because you can't identify it as something.
Nothing comes to mind without inspiration or stimulus.
Nothing can be proven to be true.
Nothing has no properties other than being nothing so there can not be more than one of them because they would
have to be indestinguishable. Nothing only has meaning when combined or compared with something else.
I believe literally 'nothing' is unique, just as most words are unique, to enable identification and hence reduce ambiguity.
Nothing is a slippery beast. Nothing is what we are left with when everything else is taken away so I suppose it is
always here.
Nothing is on my mind between other ideas.
Nothing was replaced by this weak attempt to define nothing.
Nothing precedes the origin of all things. Nothing is pure. Nothing contaminates everything else.
Is nothing sacred? ;)
Nothing can replace this crazy rant ;)
Nothing is impossible.
When you say "nothing is impossible" you're using the word "nothing" but we could also read it as [i]nothing[/I] is impossible.
In terms of the eyes and brain, there is no photon signal going into eyes and brain, stemming from the black type, since black is the absence of color or photons. The eyes and brain don't actually see the type, since there is no photon output, coming from the type, to stimulate the brain.
What we see is a white background, with funny shaped holes of nothing; the type. Without actually seeing the type, the brain interprets this nothing as something. This basic written language and reading schema extrapolates nothing, into something.
Books and other forms of reading may be responsible for nothing becoming something. The brain will fill in the void, with its own version of speculation, to create a continuity in the visual centers. Written language not only allowed better communication, but it also opened up the ethereal world; unconscious mind, via the void.
Nothing is 100% certain, there is always an alternative..
M
Quoting wellwisher
"if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you" : Nietzsche
It seems humans have evolved mentally to recognize and manipulate patterns..
In your example of 'nothing' being black or dark text, the text has structure and meaning - it comprises recognizable patterns. I believe most instances of 'nothing' if not all of them can be interpreted in numerous different ways and often they are interpreted or perceived in numerous different ways.
I would say 'nothing' can be observed and there is no guarantee that you would learn nothing.
I can't immediately wrap my head around that, I don't really think the concept of 'No-thing' presupposes anything but I might be stumbling over semantics. I mentioned earlier that 'nothing' only has meaning when compared with something else but I guess the same principle is true of most words and concepts.
2:36 "what you got to lose? you know, you come from nothing, you going back to nothing.. what have you lost? NOTHING..."
Maybe 'nothing' somehow transcends definition?
If we looked at black letters on a white background, only the white background gives off light energy that the eyes will respond too. Black is the absence of light, so the black letters do not stimulate the photoreceptors of the eyes. The signal that goes into the brain, is polarized in terms of a pattern of energy and no energy. The pattern that appeasr to consciousness is the potential equilibrating as light energy flows into the void. We observe the void by the direction of neural energy flow.
As far as we know, qualitatively, the Nothing that preceded our birth is identical to the Nothing that will follow our death. The only difference between the two is that we fear the latter, but not the former. Why??
Technically, we do not know if we exist before we are born and whether, or not, we then feel any emotions. Yes, after we are born we do exist and fear the nothingness to come after death. However, my point is that existing now and looking back, PRESENTLY, why do we not fear the prior nothingness in the same way and to the same degree as we fear the subsequent nothingness? Are they the same nothingness, or are they different; the prior being benign and engendering no fear, the latter being malignant and engendering fear?
Prior and subsequent Nothing, by definition, can only do nothing. Nothing does not cause us to become old and to die. Nothing, by definition, does nothing to us. Why, then, fear that which can have no effect on us?
Let's use the musical note as a comparison. A note 'middle C' in-itself doesn't reliably invoke any particular feeling. It all depends on what notes precede it. Prior context is what determines whether the note C is heard as consonant or dissonant, joyful or sad. It's the same thing with the concept 'nothing'.
Moving from absence to presence, from darkness to light, is associated with the reverse affects from moving from light to darkness, or presence to absence. We don't know what darkness is except as the deprivation of light. When we 'adjust' ourselves to the darkness, we cease comparing it to the light that has been lost, and at this point it loses its meaning as darkness.
It also depends on how we interpret what is present and what is absent. A suffering person may perceive moving from painful existence to the nothingness of death as relief of suffering and therefore a move from deprivation to rescue.
Or a person could find a disturbing philosophical dilemma in the idea that they weren't always existing.
In this case the nothingness is disturbing because it comes AFTER the notion of the person's existence, in the sense of gong back to the 'goodness' of existence, making reference to it .
Instead, I think the question is: What is the difference between my experience of the negation of things before I am born and my experience of the negation of things after I die? However, to hope to provide an empirical answer to this question, it would have to be possible for me to have a DIRECT EXPERIENCE of each circumstance. But, since, while living, it is clearly impossible for me to have a DIRECT EXPERIENCE of each circumstance, I, therefore, cannot explain empirically why the latter circumstance should generate fear, while the former does not. All other conceptual explanations, no matter how interesting or complex they may appear to be, remain empirically unverified conjecture.
What does empiricism have to do with a response of fear? Empiricism determines the objectivity of concepts. Emotion determines one's attitude toward a meaning. Emotion is about our personal relationship with a concept,not its objective determination. Objective concepts are empty of affective valence. There is always an answer to what makes us afraid, bu it is not empirical in the sense of locating a universally agreed definition of a concept.. Fear is threat of harm or loss. IF we fear the nothing, it is because we are understanding the nothing in a particular way that makes it a threat. Are you trying to argue that not seeing the nothing before our birth as threatening is irrational? But if you can agree that there is a logical chain of appraisal and definition involved in the assessment that pre-birth nothing is not threatening, then the problem must center on how we arrive at the particular definition of pre-birth nothing that allows us to arrive at the conclusion that it is not threatening. The chain of reasoning that begins with a subjective definition of what pre-birth nothing is, is itself empirically verifiable in the sense that we can find out from for everyone what their own chain of reasoning is and why it is justified for them on the basis of their starting definition of pre-birth nothing(that is to say, we can come up with an empirical method of connecting the experience of fear with a specific pattern of cognitive appraisal ).
It occurs to me that it may be irrelevant whether we can nail down an empirical understanding of pre-birth and -after-death nothingness. This would not justify fear 'empirically'. Since all affective responses are subjective, no matter what direct experience we start with, we still cannot justify or explain our affective reaction to that direct experience in empirical terms. Affectivty is not about direct experience understood in objective, empirical third personal terms. It is subjective meaning associated with experience, whether direct or not. So in order to answer your question of why some respond to a meaning with fear, we always have to start from the same starting point. We have to ask how the starting concept is being interpreted by that person, in relation to their past and their present circumstances as well as their goals. This is just as true with empirically determined direct experience as it is with imagined experience.
The larger lesson is that so-called direct experience is itself mediated, interpreted and differs from person to person even we decide to encapsulate it as an objective fact.
Your dilemma is only a dilemma because of the presupposition you are starting from ,that of pure objectivity and direct realism.IF you start from there, then subjective affective attitude becomes something that has to be explained. The problem vanishes if you abandon the empiricist 'view from nowhere' and instead begin from each individual's actual ways of construing meaning, fro t eir own perspective. The answer is right in front of you if you s=just ask people how they construe pre-birth nothingness. That should be all the answer you need. At any rate, it is a truer answer than assuming the idea of uninterpreted , non perspectivid pure, direct truth .
N is in concepts outside of math, the equivalent of zero.
In terms of space; if you add four walls, one floor, and one ceiling you get previously defined objects stacked on top of each other. You need to add N to these six objects in order for it to be defined as a room. The space, N, between them all is the added property for the concept of a room. Just like you add a zero to a one in order for it to be ten.
And in math, there are many definitions and calculations around infinity and just like infinity can be calculated in many ways, so could N, which is the opposite of infinity.
Then we could add how we would define the heat death of the universe. When all energy has reached its conclusion, it can no longer be defined through either M or P, it is neither of them and therefore N. It could then be used to describe the end of P and M. However, the twist to this is that the heat death is true because energy reached infinitely low values. So N is both the opposite of infinity and is infinity in this case.
Unfortunately, despite your comments and protestations, I still find it impossible to experience that which would be required to provide a definitive answer to my original question.
Some comments follow regarding what you wrote (in no specific order).
By the way, emotion is usually about a personal relationship with another person, not about a concept.
To the contrary, I might be saying that seeing the nothing after my death as threatening is irrational, since I see the nothing before my birth as non-threatening. The assumption being, of course, that we are dealing with the same nothing. But, unfortunately, neither of us can verify this assumption.
If the "answer (were) right in front of me." I wouldn't be searching for it.
Problems will always vanish if I stick my head in the sand, won't they!!!
Interesting!
Of course you can't find a definitive answer. What your premise comes down to is this:
There are directly observed experiences, which are open to empirical verification(your notion of definitive answer), and there are imagined or hypothesized experiences, which are not open to empirical verification(although much of today's physics rests on models which are not directly experienced, but empirically testable).
The concept of the nothing before or after my existence is a hypothesized event and therefore is not empirically testable, and not open to definitive answer.
"Emotion is usually about a personal relationship with another person, not about a concept."
Or about the fear that a live grenade will explode near me . If I dont have the concept of an object (objects dont exist in nature, they are our constructions of nature), i wont have the fear that the object will explode near me. Our emotions are appraisals of situations dependent on how we conceptualize those situations. That there is such a thing as a grenade, that grenades explode and that there is such a thing as a live grenade are all conceptualizations.
"To the contrary, I might be saying that seeing the nothing after my death as threatening is irrational, since I see the nothing before my birth as non-threatening. The assumption being, of course, that we are dealing with the same nothing. But, unfortunately, neither of us can verify this assumption."
So you're saying that whether my thinking about this issue is rational or irrational depends on how I'm conceptualizing the nothing before and the nothing after my death? If my understanding of before-birth nothing is very different from my notion of after-death nothing, then based on that originating premise, I could be making a rational hypothesis? If that's what you're saying I agree with that. We make hypotheses all the time without reference to direct experience, and form attitudes and affective judgements based on those hypotheses. We generally realize that our conclusions are not definitive or
empirically verifiable, but that does not make our hypotheses irrational, just imprecise and undefined.
If on the other hand you can't fathom how any indefinite, imprecise, impressionistic hypothetical conceptualization of pre-birth and after-death nothingness could possibly be rational, I disagree.
By that reasoning, mathematics is irrational since it rest on proofs that can't ground themselves in a final proof.
I do not see how your first paragraph conflicts with my position; it's simply a restatement of it (I never claimed I could find a definitive answer to my question by actually performing an empirical test).
I will grant your position as expressed in the second paragraph.
However, I find the statement (objects don't exist in nature, they are our constructions of nature) to be quite an epistemological assumption to simply throw out there without making any attempt to justify it a la Locke? Berkeley? Hume? Kant? Fichte? Schopenhauer? Schelling? Hegel?, etc.?
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that my hypothesis is that the ultimate criterion for judging the rationality, or irrationality, of the attitudes human beings have toward Nothing (pre- or post) would be determined by the actual nature of Nothing itself which, unfortunately, cannot be experienced (i.e., Nothing is beyond the limits of possible experience).
But, on second thought, didn't Heidegger claim that when Dasein encounters Nothing it experiences Dread?
"The ultimate criterion for judging the rationality, or irrationality, of the attitudes human beings have toward Nothing (pre- or post) would be determined by the actual nature of Nothing itself."
How are you understanding rationality? As a hierarchy? If determining the actual nature of something qualifies as the highest level of rationality, are there lower levels of rationality?
If I say that Sauron is someone to be feared but Gandalf is not(unless you are evil), is that a rational statement even though its facts are fictional facts rather than directly observed ?
By the way, are you familiar with the entanglement of the fact-value distinction in analytic philosophy(Putnam, Rorty, Goodman, Quine)? It argues that directly observed facts are never independent of an account interpreting the meaning of the fact.
I find Kant's thought extremely original and fascinating. However, I do agree with Schopenhauer's critical analysis of Kant's epistemology and the modifications (deletions and additions) he made thereto. But, I suspect that Schopenhauer did not go far enough with these modifications.
I'm a bit confused about your mentioning Husserl in this regard. Didn't he hold to a position that consciousness was intentional; that consciousness was always consciousness of an object that it did not constitute. And wasn't this position considered by many continental thinkers to be a refreshing "antidote" to German transcendental idealism?
Or, perhaps, are you referring, instead, to Husserl's later, more idealistic, position which was strongly criticized by Sartre in his essay "The Transcendence of the Ego"?
Yes, I think there are degrees of rationality. If I'm not mistaken, I think Descartes held to this position.
For example: The Cogito Sum as an indubitably certain performative intuition, or thought act, in the first person, present tense mode versus the Cogito ergo Sum as an inferential proposition which can be subject to indirect doubt. The former may be said to be true in a more fundamental way than the latter because the truths of the former are existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying while being performed, while the truths of the latter proposition may not be true when not being directly attended to.
Does your statement imply that there is direct opposition between fictional facts and direct observation?
No, I'm not. But could you direct me to some specific works about this topic?
Here's a taste of fact-value entanglement:
"To be objective, one would have to have some set of mind-independent objects to be
designated by language or known by science. But can we find any such objects? Let us look at an extended example from the philosopher Nelson Goodman.
A point in space seems to be perfectly objective. But how are we to define the points of our everyday world? Points can be taken either as primitive elements, as intersecting lines, as certain triples of intersecting planes, or as certain classes of nesting volumes. These definitions are equally adequate, and yet they are incompatible: what a point is will vary with each form of description. For example, only in the first "version," to use Goodman's term, will a point be a primitive element. The objectivist, however, demands, "What are points really?" Goodman's response to this demand is worth quoting at length: If the composition of points out of lines or of lines out of points is conventional rather than factual, points and lines themselves are no less so. ... If we say that our sample space is a combination of points, or of lines, or of regions, or a combination of combinations of points, or lines, or regions, or
a combination of all these together, or is a single lump, then since none is identical with any of the rest, we are giving one among countless alternative conflicting descriptions of what the space is.
And so we may regard the disagreements as not about the facts but as due to differences in the conventions-adopted in organizing or describing the space. What, then, is the neutral fact or thing described in these different terms? Neither the space (a) as an undivided whole nor (b) as a combination of everything involved in the several accounts; for (a) and (b) are but two among the various ways of organizing it. But what is it that is so organized? When we strip off as layers of convention all differences among ways of describing it, what is left? The onion is peeled down to its empty core."
Thanks. Very interesting.