The wrongness of "nothing is still something"

Mijin

Recently I've heard this idea that "nothing is still something" in a number of places, e.g. on The Atheist Experience, and often used in the context of explaining existence itself.

But the reasoning is flawed, and the misconception actually flows from a linguistic issue with English.

In English, we have a noun Nothing. But this noun is special, in that really it is a contraction of logical-NOT and thing.
So, for example, the sentence "There's nothing to be afraid of" is not suggesting that we be afraid of 1 thing, and that thing we're referring to as "nothing". It means there are zero things to be afraid of; the set of things to be afraid of is the empty set.

Likewise, when we're talking about the whole universe and asking questions like why something exists instead of nothing, we're asking why the set of things that exist is not empty. We're not suggesting some reality where there is a discrete thing we're calling "nothing" has the property of existing.

As further proof, note that not all languages have "nothing" and so this whole issue is largely sidestepped. When Matt Dillahunty says "Demonstrate me a nothing existing" I have no idea how to translate that into Mandarin; I'd have to say something like "Don't demonstrate something existing".

Oh, and just to head off some possible responses, I'm of course talking about philosophical "nothing" here, so arguments of how a volume of space time necessarily contains virtual particles or whatever is irrelevant. I'm not talking about an empty space or a quantum anything.

Pfhorrest

Nothing is better than heaven.
But a ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heaven.

Gus Lamarch

Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heaven. — Pfhorrest

Truer words have never been said

TheMadFool

Well, it seems that our first task is to find out what "thing" refers to; after all, as the OP said, nothing means NOT a thing.

Gregory

Maybe something IS nothing (shunyata)

Gregory

Our reality is largely subjective. Why there is something translates to "why do I have meaning", which translates straight into math: one is greater than 0. You are 1

TheMadFool

Maybe something IS nothing (shunyata) — Gregory

I don't think so. Shunyata, as an analogy, is about composite numbers - numbers that can be decomposed into primes - but it doesn't, in fact can't, deny the existence of the primes. :chin:

Mijin

↪Pfhorrest

Nothing is better than heaven.
But a ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heaven. — Pfhorrest

Haha, that's brilliant. It's both funny and alludes to exactly the issue I'm talking about.

Gregory

↪TheMadFool

It can question what "exists" means though

Wayfarer

don't think so. Shunyata, as an analogy, is about composite numbers - numbers that can be decomposed into primes - but it doesn't, in fact can't, deny the existence of the primes. :chin: — TheMadFool

Śūnyatā has nothing to do with number theory.

‘Nothing’ is only meaningful as the negation of ‘something’. If nothing existed, then ‘nothing’ would be meaningless.

Wayfarer

Likewise, when we're talking about the whole universe and asking questions like why something exists instead of nothing, we're asking why the set of things that exist is not empty. — Mijin

Actually - no. I think your OP fails to come to terms with the existential angst behind the question. The original question was posed by Liebniz, thus:

Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason [...] is found in a substance which [...] is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself.

Which is, of course, a theistic answer, because Liebniz was a theist (back in the day when this wasn't an internet slang term.)

But, science itself has recently declared with complete confidence that according to its reckonings, the Universe should not exist. It comprises many apparent flukes and miraculous coincidences, many things that have to be 'just so' in order for anything to exist whatever. But unless one is struck by the wonder of it all, then it's, well, just another internet post.

Metaphysician Undercover

Haha, that's brilliant. It's both funny and alludes to exactly the issue I'm talking about. — Mijin

That's called equivocation. It's a logical fallacy resulting from the misuse of words. It would be very helpful for you in discussion on this forum, to understand this fallacy, and be able to readily recognize it, because it's commonplace here.

TheLeviathanKing

I believe it's language slur if you change the word to matter then it makes more sense there either is matter in the area or there is a lack thereof matter which would be the nothing we're referring to.

Metaphysician Undercover

Actually - no. I think your OP fails to come to terms with the existential angst behind the question. The original question was posed by Liebniz, thus:

Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason [...] is found in a substance which [...] is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself. — Wayfarer

Aristotle examined this question of why there is something rather than nothing, in his Metaphysics, and determined that it was unanswerable, and therefore the wrong question to ask, because it's a sort of nonsensical thing to ask. Instead, he replaced this question with the more appropriate question of why there is what there is, instead of something else. It is in answering this question that he is led to believe that form is necessarily prior in time to matter, validating the assumption of immaterial Forms.

This is consistent with Leibniz' principle of sufficient reason. If we look at every thing which exists, and conclude that there must be a reason (cause) for it being what it is rather than something else, then the cause of a thing being the very thing that it is (rather than something else) is necessarily prior to its material being as that thing which it is. If we propose a first thing now, we cannot conclude that the first thing comes from absolutely nothing because there must be a reason (cause) of it being the thing that it is, rather than something else. And, since the existence of each material thing is organized in a specific way, and not completely random, we must exclude random chance as a possible cause of the first thing.

edit: the seed of this idea is found in Plato's Timaeus.

Frank Apisa

Recently I've heard this idea that "nothing is still something" in a number of places, e.g. on The Atheist Experience, and often used in the context of explaining existence itself.

But the reasoning is flawed, and the misconception actually flows from a linguistic issue with English. — Mijin

I suspect...

...that although there is the "linguistic issue with English"...

...that "nothing" is still "something"...even if it is just an idea.

An idea IS something...even though it has no substance.

A zero IS something...even though it is nothing.

Math was improved by the invention of "zero"...and probably could not exist coherently today without it.

Gregory

Some notes:

1) zero is useful, but nothing

2) Aristotle did not like OP question because for him God was only the final cause of the eternal universe, not the efficient cause of a temporally finite one.

3) randomness can bring about patterns and life if the dice are thrown often enough. When thinking of something as huge as the universe and doing so in the universe and thinking with the matter of the universe, we have to be humble before the possibility of a lot of dice throws

4) what something is, what matter is... is a hotly debated subject in philosophy

3017amen

↪Wayfarer

Nothing’ is only meaningful as the negation of ‘something’. If nothing existed, then ‘nothing’ would be meaningless. — Wayfarer

Agreed! Yet another paradox for the Atheist to resolve!! The irony there is, that 'nothing' then becomes just a Platonic ideal; an abstract mathematical concept. And so the concept of nothing is just a concept in itself. In nature and reality, nothing doesn't really exist.

For instance, nothing would be something that consists of no space at all, and no time, no particles, no fields, no laws of nature, etc.. Using laws of nature (or any mathematical laws) the number 0 exists as an abstract metaphysical concept that is actually something, not nothing. ( In fact, me describing nothing is still something.)

↪Mijin

To the OP, why is 'nothing is still something'' wrong?

3017amen

A zero IS something...even though it is nothing. — Frank Apisa

:up:

TheMadFool

Śūnyatā has nothing to do with number theory.

‘Nothing’ is only meaningful as the negation of ‘something’. If nothing existed, then ‘nothing’ would be meaningless — Wayfarer

I did say it was an analogy and the analogy holds. It's my understanding, possibly mistaken, that shunyata builds off of the concept of interdependence which states that many things that exist are actually composites - made of simpler parts. For instance a chair consists of wood or metal and nails or bolts. When the parts of a chair are separated from each other the whole ceases to exist - removing the nails, bolts, wood and metal destroys the chair. However, for shunyata to make sense, all things must be decomposable into its components and these components verily must exist. If not, an infinite regress is on the cards.

3017amen

) zero is useful, but nothing — Gregory

A wonderful paradox! Nicely said.

Gregory

↪TheMadFool

Wasn't Heideggger's entire (uncompleted) task to try to explain what existence even was? You're assuming it's obvious

Gregory

In an existential sense we believe the universe exists, but what that means ontologically is a separate question

Gregory

historyofphilosophy.net/nagarjuna-change

Nils Loc

I don't think there is anything wrong with "nothing is still something" because negation requires something to negate.

Nothing is always framed by something. In the question "why is there something rather than nothing" our concept of nothing completely relies on the general acceptance that something cannot also be nothing.

In absence of framing what is or what isn't (by an observer) there is not even nothing.

No one wants to break the law of identity but what stops you from doing it. Nothing until something arrives to stop you. "You moron!, that is not how to do what ought to be done because it produces nothing of value because X,Y, Z. "

Wayfarer

. It's my understanding, possibly mistaken, that shunyata builds off of the concept of interdependence which states that many things that exist are actually composites - made of simpler parts. — TheMadFool

Well, kind of, but talking about wholes and parts in numerical terms is generally absent from Buddhist reasoning.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. — Thanisarro Bhikhu

Emptiness

.

However, for shunyata to make sense, all things must be decomposable into its components and these components verily must exist. If not, an infinite regress is on the cards. — TheMadFool

Śūnyatā is not non-existence. It's that particulars are empty of inherent existence. Everything that exists, exists in relation to others; nothing exists 'in its own right'. It's a very subtle argument, easily misunderstood as nihilism (nothing exists.)

The parts-and-wholes analogy is spelt out in a famous scripture called The Questions of King Milinda, given in terms of a chariot. Ven. Nagasena says that the chariot the King travels in is nothing more than an assemblage of parts. However, the Platonist in me says it is something more: it's the idea of a chariot, and that those possessing such an idea are able to build a chariot, whereas those who do not, will not be able to. And that as long as the idea persists, then chariots can continue to be made, whether it's this or that chariot. I think that's why the West had the Industrial Revolution and the East did not. :-)

Gregory

I don't get why people think it's esoteric to wonder what it means to say "the world exists" but don't think it's esoteric to posit a super necessary being as the explanation of the world. As Roger Penrose told William Craig, saying there is a super being explains uh what?

Mijin

To the OP, why is 'nothing is still something'' wrong? — 3017amen

My point is that the reasoning behind "nothing is still something" is usually based on various misconceptions related the fact that in English, "logical negation" + "thing" has been contracted into a singular noun.
Statements like "Demonstrate me a nothing" or "Show me that nothing can exist" are nonsensical statements, that can't even be translated into languages that don't have this contraction.
So the burden is on believers of that statement to give some valid reason for thinking it to be true not based on this misapprehension.

Having said that, "thing" can mean different, well, things, and the statement is obviously true in some senses. For example, a state of nothingness is still a state; and the concept of "nothing existing" alludes to such a state.

But, importantly, "nothing is still something" is often used as a jumping off point for "solutions" to the problem of existence itself. For example, the implication is often that the concept of nothing existing is somehow self-inconsistent, and therefore a physical universe must necessarily exist. But again, once you appreciate the linguistic issues with "nothing" in English, there's no reason at all to think that "nothing existing" is self-inconsistent.

Gregory

↪Mijin

First you say it's non-sensical to ask if nothing exists, then you do just that. Also, nothing in the English dictionary does not say that nothing is kinda something. Your post is non-sensical.

Gregory

I would not say the world is necessary. It's more likely contingent, and even more likely neither contingent nor necessary. I understand what people mean when they say God exists but it's really meaningless. I don't understand what people mean when they say the world exists, but it's meaningful. Search for what matters

Mijin

↪Gregory

First you say it's non-sensical to ask if nothing exists, then you do just that. Also, nothing in the English dictionary does not say that nothing is kinda something. Your post is non-sensical. — Gregory

No, I think you have not read my post correctly -- which is understandable; the whole issue that I am talking about here is how the English language is breeding certain Epistomological misconceptions and misunderstandings, so it is necessarily difficult to discuss this issue.

So, let's be clear. At no point have I said that nothing exists is itself nonsensical. Indeed I have said several times now that there is nothing logically inconsistent in nothing existing whatsoever.
What's nonsensical is asking for a demonstration, or evidence of, nothing in our universe. It's treating "nothing" as some discrete entity that we could view and measure, and that makes no sense.

3017amen

For example, the implication is often that the concept of nothing existing is somehow self-inconsistent, and therefore a physical universe must necessarily exist. — Mijin

No exceptions taken! (The concept of nothing is logically necessary, for there to be something.)

The wrongness of "nothing is still something"

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