Why would nothing have properties? What kind of ontology are you situating nothing in?What other properties of N are there? — TheMadFool
Why would nothing have properties? What kind of ontology are you situating nothing in? — bloodninja
Can you think of a case where this may apply for no thing as well? — MikeL
In what other way can we make sense of N? — TheMadFool
Zero is the quantitative property of NOTHING — TheMadFool
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. — bloodninja
All I'm basically saying is that nothing is primordial, and more primordial than zero — bloodninja
It isn't. — StreetlightX
There are only two worlds that I know of:
1. Mental world (M)
2. Physical world (P) — TheMadFool
There is a third world. — bloodninja
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. — TheMadFool
But ìt doesn't reside in the mental world — bloodninja
For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not
are; and do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry.
Nor let habit force thee to cast a wandering eye upon this
devious track, or to turn thither thy resounding ear or thy
tongue; but do thou judge the subtle refutation of their
discourse uttered by me.
What is NOTHING ( N )?
Definitions:
1. Google: not anything
2. Merriam-Webster: nonexistence
Do the two definitions concur? — TheMadFool
N is neither mental nor physical. It can't be a thought and neither is it a physical object. — TheMadFool
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. — TheMadFool
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. — TheMadFool
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. — TheMadFool
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. — TheMadFool
Something neither mental nor physical? That seems impossible. Can you clarify. — TheMadFool
Zero is a number too small to be measured or the absences of. — Jeremiah
the concept of N that has the property — Herg
Numbers are not properties of things — Herg
A hammer is neither a physical phenomenon nor a mental phenomenon — bloodninja
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? — TheMadFool
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. — bloodninja
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. — Herg
By that reasoning, a hammer is NOTHING. — TheMadFool
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.
— Herg
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. — bloodninja
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). — Herg
The hammer is not an object, it is equipment. — bloodninja
As such it belongs to a different ontological order than the subject/object (or mental/physical) ontology that this discussion has been grounded in. — bloodninja
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. — bloodninja
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. — bloodninja
Here you seem to be making an implicitly metaphysical claim that the physical stuff the hammer is made out of is actually real, and therefore, because it’s actually real, the dog can actually play with it. This is not the same as saying that the hammer is (also) an object. Please note that, for the dog, the hammer is neither ontologically ready-to-hand equipment nor an ontologically present-at-hand object. I think it’s safe to say that dogs aren’t ontological, and for that reason the dog has no understanding of the being of the hammer as either a hammer or an object. For the dog it is a curious play-thing. Therefore that the dog can play with the hammer does not prove that the hammer is also an object. Ontologically speaking, the dog is just irrelevant.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. — Herg
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