Sure it is. Say you have a universe with just one item, a number of the form x:yz (Say that it just appears in the manner of a digital display floating in a vacuum) — Terrapin Station
If 9:31 is the number, then it disappears and 9:32 appears instead, that's a change, even if the two numbers have no causal connection whatsoever. — Terrapin Station
That universe is the principle of continuity, the thing that remains the same throughout the change. — Metaphysician Undercover
The universe doesn't exist aside from which number, 9:31 or 9:32? If the universe disappears when 9:31 disappears, then there is nothing. Where does 9:32 come from if there is nothing? I — Metaphysician Undercover
Aside from 9:31, which disappears,then 9:32 instantaneously appears in its place instead. "Where it comes from" is irrelevant in this thought experiment. It instantaneously appears in place of 9:31, which disappeared. There's no causal etc. connection between them. — Terrapin Station
Now you are describing a temporal continuity — Metaphysician Undercover
There's no time aside from the succession of numbers described. — Terrapin Station
You're thinking of time so that in your view, it's something other than particular changes. — Terrapin Station
That it's instantaneous is just stressing that no other changes occur in between the two events. — Terrapin Station
You keep wanting to add stuff to our universe(s)--you're making the universe something other than the number in question, you're making time something other than the change in question, etc. In this thought experiment, at least, nothing exists except for one number, which disappears, and then a different number, which appears acausally. — Terrapin Station
So, we have two distinct numbers, 9:32 and 9:31. I don't see any change here, — Metaphysician Undercover
I was simply observing that it is impossible to conceive of a universe with just one item. 'One' depends on there being 'more than one'. — Wayfarer
I was simply observing that it is impossible to conceive of a universe with just one item. 'One' depends on there being 'more than one'.
— Wayfarer
How so? — jorndoe
If there's one thing and then something else replaces it, that's not a change? — Terrapin Station
'imagining a universe with a single thing' seems literally impossible to me. Even the concept of 'in' requires a distinction or a duality - the area or space in which 'the thing' resides, and the space it resides 'in'. And then you already have 'more than one', namely, the entity, and the space it occupies. You have edges, boundaries, and sides. For this reason it is simply an empirical and logical impossibility that there could be a universe comprising a single entity. — Wayfarer
It's those existents' extensions and their extensional relations to each other. — Terrapin Station
Right, so on your view, 9:31 obtains, it disappears and 9:32 obtains in its place--that's not a change? — Terrapin Station
Yes on my view that could be called a change, because you've referred to a succession. Therefore it is implied by what you say, that there is something distinct from 9:31 and distinct from 9:32 causing, or allowing, the one to disappear and the other to appear. The point is that without this distinct third thing there is no change. If you proceed to deny the third thing, then I will insist that there is no change, and you speak in deceptive terms, terms which do not represent what you mean. — Metaphysician Undercover
Would it be easier to imagine a universe with only one thing if that one thing were a simple, point-like object, with no spatial extension or internal structure? That would negate any problem with whether edges, boundaries, etc constitute "things" in their own right.'imagining a universe with a single thing' seems literally impossible to me. Even the concept of 'in' requires a distinction or a duality - the area or space in which 'the thing' resides, and the space it resides 'in'. And then you already have 'more than one', namely, the entity, and the space it occupies. You have edges, boundaries, and sides. For this reason it is simply an empirical and logical impossibility that there could be a universe comprising a single entity. — Wayfarer
Things stand in certain (reflexive) relations to themselves. For instance, everything is identical to itself; identity is a relation.But in a 'universe of one thing', how can there be any relations? — Wayfarer
But in a 'universe of one thing', how can there be any relations? — Wayfarer
it is simply an empirical and logical impossibility that there could be a universe comprising a single entity — Wayfarer
in the absence of observers, our universe is dead — Davies
Right. so it's not a change on your view, because we specified that there is no third thing, that it's acausal, etc. I just want to confirm that on your view, it's not a change. Would you say that 9:31 to 9:32 is the same then? — Terrapin Station
As I said before, if 9:31 disappeared absolutely, then there would be absolutely nothing left. And it's nonsense to think that 9:32 could come into existence from absolutely nothing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Suppose there is absolutely nothing. How could something come into existence? — Metaphysician Undercover
Suppose there is absolutely nothing. How could something come into existence? — Metaphysician Undercover
How is that not asking for a cause? You're asking what the mechanism would be, what would trigger it, etc. — Terrapin Station
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