Nothing is a very clear concept. Is the lack of something.
— Helder Afonso

A lack of anything. Everything lacks something. My dog lacks a tail. — Kenosha Kid

Sometimes it's the lack of lacking something.

Everything lacks something. — Kenosha Kid

Only from a normative perspective.

Sometimes it's the lack of lacking something. — god must be atheist

I miss the lack of lacking something :(

I've forgotten the feeling of missing the lack of lacking something.

1. That which does not exist is nothing
2. The past does not exist
3. All causes occur in the past when measured in time local to their present effect
4. Therefore all causes are nothing
5. Therefore everything comes from nothing.

Ex nihilo omnia fit

Anything else is illogical. Nothingness cannot have anything in it. Nothingness is not even an 'it'. If there is something happening in nothingness, there is something, not nothingness. Nothingness cannot have potency because potency is something. — EnPassant

How do you know that the potency of nothing is something?

" Nothing" stays the same. It is unchanging and dose not evolve.
But the universe and all of its components are constantly changing and evolving. :chin:

2. The past does not exist — Garth

This is not true. The past is a previous state of the present. When a physical object moves through space, its current position and trajectory can be plotted as a vector, which includes its motion through time. It is only our limited perspective which restricts us to perceiving current states of affairs in a temporally restricted fashion. Think of the intellect as an organ for perceiving "temporal depth."

The point is debatable but you must admit my argument is a lot stronger than OPs.

↪Pantagruel The point is debatable but you must admit my argument is a lot stronger than OPs. — Garth

If I thought that I wouldn't have made the comment.

So you think the strength of an argument follows from whether you agree with it?

1. That which does not exist is nothing
2. The past does not exist
3. All causes occur in the past when measured in time local to their present effect
4. Therefore all causes are nothing
5. Therefore everything comes from nothing. — Garth

There is a problem with your use of the verb tenses that suggest too much logic. You look at the present giving too much strength to statics, and too little to historical dynamics. Let me explain.

The past does not exist. NOW. But it did exist.

So the causes that effect things in the present DID exist at one point or another in time. NOW they don't exist, but the effects of their CAUSING do exist now.

Therefore not all causes are nothing.

And the conclusion is wrong, since the assumptions are invalid.

I think I refuted your second premise and your defense was "the point is debatable".

2. The past does not exist — Garth

The past exists as a memory in our imagination.

Naturally, the past is not contemporaneous with the present. The past did exist, when it was the present. And it didn't "stop existing," it became the present. As GMBA rightly points out. It was almost a nice bit of sophistry though.

Nothing comes from nothing.
Nothing becomes nothing.
Consciousness is not nothing (cogito ergo sum).
Ergo... — Pantagruel

You didn't even make an argument here. You're just assuming your conclusion, which is literally ...
That's why my argument is better than yours.

It was almost a nice bit of sophistry though. — Pantagruel

My point was to concoct something less sophistical than what you posted. And I think I succeeded. Honestly your OP transcends sophistry to the depths of the shitpost.

The past exists as a memory in our imagination. — Pop

Then God exists. Because he exists in the imagination of anyone who believes in God and this has the property of existing.

The past does not exist. NOW. But it did exist.
...
So the causes that effect things in the present DID exist at one point or another in time. NOW they don't exist, but the effects of their CAUSING do exist now. — god must be atheist

So the past is nothing, and all effects are caused by nothing. Or alternatively, we remember the past because the past is part of the present, and what is contained in the past is only our memory of events which don't exist anymore.

And the conclusion is wrong, since the assumptions are invalid. — god must be atheist

Not correct, the conclusion simply doesn't follow if the assumptions are invalid. The conclusion can still be true.

or to put it in your patronizing style...

A wrong argument doesn't PROVE it's conclusion. Thus the conclusion can EITHER be TRUE or FALSE.

My point was to concoct something less sophistical than what you posted. And I think I succeeded. Honestly your OP transcends sophistry to the depths of the shitpost. — Garth

That's not very polite. I utilized two of the most venerable philosophical dictums as the major and minor premises of a syllogism. So, the content was not shit, neither was the structure. It was concise and unambiguous. If you lack the philosophical depth to intuit the connection maybe you should just read more, and post less until you have.

The past does not exist. NOW. But it did exist.
...
So the causes that effect things in the present DID exist at one point or another in time. NOW they don't exist, but the effects of their CAUSING do exist now.
— god must be atheist

So the past is nothing, and all effects are caused by nothing. Or alternatively, we remember the past because the past is part of the present, and what is contained in the past is only our memory of events which don't exist anymore. — Garth

You just keep repeating yourself, as if you couldn't get out of the groove you feel comfortable in. There is no progression here; I refute you, you repeat what i had just refuted.

The hard problem of philosophy. How to gift someone with the ability to become flexible and accept things that are not conducive with their theories, even if it were conducive to accept them in determining the truth.

I have to think of my health. I have to think of my blood pressure. I can't lose my temper, because my doctors told me that would be the last time I ever wrote anything philosophical.

You just keep repeating yourself — god must be atheist

You are the one who is just repeating yourself.

That's not very polite. I utilized two of the most venerable philosophical dictums as the major and minor premises of a syllogism. — Pantagruel

You have not been polite to me.

You are the one who is just repeating yourself. — Garth

Yes. I keep repeating that you are repeating yourself saying that I'm repeating myself.

Your post lends itself to two interpretations. The first, "naive" interpretation:
lets start by converting your premises:

"Consciousness is not nothing" --> "Consciousness is something"
"Nothing comes from nothing" --> already an affirmative premise
"Nothing becomes nothing" --> already an affirmative premise

Conclusion does not follow because even though nothing comes from and becomes nothing, consciousness is something and so there is no shared middle term with either pair of premises.

The second, "sophisticated" interpretation:

"Consciousness is not nothing" --> "Consciousness is something"
"Nothing comes from nothing" --> "something comes from something"
"Nothing becomes nothing" --> "something becomes something"

Conclusion does not follow because "something" is an equivocal term.

The third, "intended" interpretation:

"Consciousness is not nothing" --> "Consciousness is something"
"Nothing comes from nothing" --> "everything comes from something"
"Nothing becomes nothing" --> "everything becomes something"

Conclusion follows. Consciousness comes from and becomes something. However, we must equivocate as to the meaning of nothing. The first nothing has a grammatical function -- it means "It is never the case that something" while the second nothing means simply what does not exist.

But as Isaac points out, the second and third premises, in order to be true, must already assume consciousness as coming from and becoming something.

I will assume that the Parmenidean dictum you quoted is not interpreted in the Aristotelian sense. I don't see how that ancient doctrine is compatible with quantum events or the Big Bang.

So the real question is not with regard to consciousness but about universal causality on the practical scale of human events. Some very early attacks on causality come from Pyrronian Skepticism. I've tried to adapt one to the discussion here.

The argument I had in mind is this one:

Furthermore, a cause produces an effect either at a time when it already exists and exists as a cause, or when it is not a cause. Now it certainly does not do so when it is not a cause; but if it does so when it is a cause, it must have existed and have become a cause beforehand, and then, this done, it must bring about the effect, which is said to be produced by it at a time when it is already a cause. But since the cause is relative, that is, relative to the effect, clearly it cannot, as a cause, exist before the effect; therefore it is not possible for the cause, at the time when it is the cause, to produce that of which it is the cause. And if it cannot produce anything either when it is a cause or when it is not, then it cannot produce anything. Wherefore, it will not be a cause, for apart from producing something a cause cannot be conceived as a cause. — Sextus Empiricus

This argument is 99% sophistical. But there is a 1% that matters.

So the causes that effect things in the present DID exist at one point or another in time. NOW they don't exist, but the effects of their CAUSING do exist now. — god must be atheist

The past is a previous state of the present. — Pantagruel

Both of you seem to be saying that the past does not presently exist, but that it is also not nothing. But supposing I have a box that once contained a stack of papers but is now empty. If I say "there's nothing in the box" you would need to correct me: The history of everything that was ever in that box is still in the box.

Alternatively, the space in that box, the place where those papers were stored, must have existed in some way before the box was manufactured, and after I send the box off to be recycled, and it is broken down into pulp, that space persists in some form.

Ex nihilo nihil fit - is logical, but logic is a consequence of the reality that springs into being from the big bang, establishing the existence of time, space, energy, matter, and the logic of that reality, we are fundamentally unable to see beyond.

For example - the double slit experiment shows that photons pass through two slits at the same time. EPR shows quantum particles communicating information, faster than light, over vast distances - without any apparent transfer between them. Quantum tunnelling shows particles passing through solid matter.

Clearly, our logic is local to the slice of reality we inhabit; and consequently, ex nihilo nihil fit - explains precisely nothing about the origin of the universe.

It is the wrong question anyway; a conceit - to project oneself to the ends of the universe, and look back at us, and tell us what is and isn't true. Truth begins at the fingertips - and is built bottom up, by testing hypotheses in relation to the evidence of the senses.