Maybe empty space but space has no meaning if it is void or empty. In a way an empty space doesn't exit.
There is always a background or logical space where we can have different states of affairs.

Upon thinking about this, my immediate response is to imagine a white sphere in a black void. However, this is clearly incorrect because there are many things present: (1) color, black and white, (2) geometry, which makes the sphere a sphere, and (3) space, in which the sphere is placed. You could argue there are other elements too, such as the fact that the sphere has the property of being white. — InTheChair

Your "many things" aren't things "in and of themselves." Those are properties of something. Properties are not separable from the thing with those properties.

I think it could potentially be one, but not actually one ‘thing’. For something to exist in actuality, its potential must interact or be observed/measured by something else as something ‘other’ than itself.

Something sentient or intelligent right? Because I thought the same exact thing, just not very sure how to flesh it out lol.

Can there be a universe, world, etc. in which only one thing exists? — InTheChair

The requirement of a second thing that experiences the truth of a world of one thing, at the same time contradicts it. World herein taken to mean a perfectly isolated physical system, hypothetical as they may be, which implies observations of it must be from within it.

There could be such a world, but questions about it could never be answered. Like....against the principle of cause and effect, if there is but one thing.....what caused it?

Interesting.

Wouldn’t the universe be the one thing that exists?

Wouldn’t the universe be the one thing that exists? — NOS4A2

Yes, the Totality of what is real as a Whole would be the one and only permanent
thing. There could not be any spacers of impossible Nothingness within it. Einstein and Rovelli suggest that, as such, all is field.

My friend and I discussed it further:

This 'Eterne' or 'World' (as referred to in the old days) is the one necessary being (not Being).

No thing can lie outside of the World, for if any such thing were real, it would be included in the World. Thus, the world could not have been caused by anything outside of it. Nor could the World have caused itself, for that which does not exist cannot cause anything. Accordingly, the World had no beginning and will have no end; thus it is the Eterne, or what 'IS'. QED.

However, the World is in continuous transition. Indeed, the idea of causation comes from the fact that a small portion of the world seems from our perspective to change or move in constant conjunction with certain things that preceded it.

One may object that if the World is in continuous transition, it does not exist as anything in particular, not even for an instant, for logically there can be no instants where the progress of transitions is perfectly seamless temporally.

But what then is the basis for the conclusion that the World necessarily exists? Something must stitch together all the continuous transitions to account for the world as a unitary existent. The world must somehow remain the same even as it changes. But how is this possible?

The answer is that the World must have a kind of eternal essence that dictates the kinds of, albeit not the number of, its transitions. This limitation in kind is what we experience from our point of view as the laws of nature.

This condition of the World is, in a way, analogous to a topological space that is capable of an infinite number of forms that are however subject to the limitation that any form must be returnable to some original form.

It seems right that the Eterne/IS/World, having no possible point for input, can't be anything specific or particular, it then, presumably being Everything, either potentially, as in presentism, or somehow, all at once, in a superposition, as in eternalism or as in the quantum realm.

'Everything' sounds really Great; however, note that its total information content would be the same as the impossible Nothing, that is, zero. Welcome to the Library of Babel that contains all possible books.

You will be back, again and again, but you won't remember the previous.

It depends what you mean by one thing. If you take it to the bottom or to the top all things inevitably end up being one thing.

It depends what you mean by one thing. If you take it to the bottom or to the top all things inevitably end up being one thing. — whollyrolling

Reality would be wholly rolling as the One Thing continuing/transitioning/transforming.

The one who shocked the olden philosophic word to its foundations:

Only a fragment of his 'On Nature' survived, but it was the best part.

No one experiences my thoughts.

yes

No one — whollyrolling

Think not that I am existent as ‘I’,
Or talk the talk and walk the walk of ‘I’,
For all’s of the IS; the Cosmos is I;
Where then, and what, who, and whence is this ‘I’?

Something sentient or intelligent right? Because I thought the same exact thing, just not very sure how to flesh it out lol. — Ignance

Not the way you might think. The way I see it, potential interacts with potential as other, and in doing so continually manifests the energy event that IS the unfolding universe. The extent of initial awareness is simply ‘more’: something, and the universe acquires information about itself from there with every interaction.

As Rovelli says: “A physical system manifests itself only by interacting with another. The description of a physical system, then, is always given in relation to another physical system, one with which it interacts. A description of a system is, therefore, always a description of the information which a system has about another system.”

So the universe of energy events develops from an initial awareness of, connection and collaboration with this more in each of its one dimensional possibilities, incorporating what information it gains with each interaction. Many energy events such as photons cohere toward particles in this way, while the universe diversifies in all four physical dimensions, developing across space and time. Other energy events, by continuing to initiate awareness of, connection and collaboration with others, increase their capacity to distinguish between energy, force, direction, distance, duration: the laws of physics.

Chemical reactions develop a two dimensional awareness, with the capacity to distinguish between multiple interactions within a duration. Here begins the capacity for life...

So let me get this straight, “something” can surely exist as long as there’s “something” else out there that can interact with it and/or react to it? Otherwise I can surely affirm that it does not exist because there is nothing else there to (kind of) ground it in reality?

So let me get this straight, “something” can surely exist as long as there’s “something” else out there that can interact with it and/or react to it? Otherwise I can surely affirm that it does not exist because there is nothing else there to (kind of) ground it in reality? — Ignance

If by ‘exist’ you mean exist in spacetime, then yes. But don’t forget that you are ‘something’, too. And you also exist and have the capacity to interact beyond spacetime - to experience ‘yourself’ in the universe, as potential - and manifest reality to the extent that you are aware of, connecting and collaborating with the potential of all that you experience.

I think that however you reduce particles only exist in relation to other particles. The whatever it is that is there is only there by that it exists in relation to whatever else there is that is there. I don't think that anything can exist by itself. An existents existence is in relation to other existents.

Edit: Existence is the relationship. Everything is energy. That atomic existents interact is how they exist.

If by ‘exist’ you mean exist in spacetime, then yes. But don’t forget that you are ‘something’, too. And you also exist and have the capacity to interact beyond spacetime - to experience ‘yourself’ in the universe, as potential - and manifest reality to the extent that you are aware of, connecting and collaborating with the potential of all that you experience. — Possibility

This is a really beautiful thing. Thanks for breaking it down for me.

My original thought was, couldn't the universe as a whole exist by itself? Even that's not for certain these days with the many worlds theory.

In Quantum Mechanics physicists generally think so, as do I, but when looked at carefully it has issues eg decoherence is likely what gives quantum things its properties independent of 'observation', which of course means you do not have an object by itself. I would say, more carefully, further research is required.

Thanks
Bill

Can something exist by itself? — InTheChair

It can if the thing that exists is Everything. Sometimes we call it "the universe". Anything else that exists presumably exists within the universe, so can't be alone?

My original thought was, couldn't the universe as a whole exist by itself? Even that's not for certain these days with the many worlds theory. — Kilvayne

In that case, I think we substitute the label "multiverse" or "multiverses" for "universe", and the concept (of solitary existence) continues undisturbed, yes?

Everything is energy. — thewonder

I’m the All and the One, omnipresent,
For I’m eternal and can neither be
Created nor destroyed, being my own cause
And the Ground of All—I am Energy.

the Ground of All... I like that.

the Ground of All... I like that. — thewonder

Or the Ground of Determination (G.O.D.).

I'll skip some of my thinking for now, and jump to my conclusion: No, something cannot exist by itself. — InTheChair

I agree. By itself, no. But as itself, certainly. Or so it seems. But a question: given that "something" cannot be - exist - by itself, then it seems to follow that in existing, necessarily something else exists. Is existence then founded in a reciprocity? Or is there one thing that in existing grounds the existence of all other things? And if one thing, does that exist by itself? (And if it does, how would thee or me know it?) Or does it require itself reciprocity?

Or is all this a language-based dead-end. I suspect this latter is the case. Where the investigation into reality or aspects of leads to an aporia or the assistance of super- or non-natural beings or things, that is a failure of language and understanding, not of reality.

Everything exists in contrast with something else. It's the yin-yang, the two sides of the same coin, black implies white, you can't remove one side of a coin or the other side disappears as well. Now, if you're talking about actions, happenings, spontaneity, that's another subject. In terms of existence, nothing exists by itself, there could be no sound without silence. Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself, said the philosopher Alan Watts.

The fabric of Existence is continuous, as field.

By itself, no. But as itself, certainly. — tim wood

And yet the topic title clearly says "by itself". :chin:

Clever, but how about the question in my post? If no thing can exist by itself, then how can any set of things exist by itself? In as much as things exist, it appears the observation is nonsensical.