Let's ignore language or communicating with others. Do you think it's possible for an existent to perceive 'nothing?' internally? — universeness
Or if there was a book on the desk this morning. You saw it there lying on the desk. But when you saw the desk when you returned home from the town after few hours of errands, it has gone. There is nothing on the desk....................At that moment, in your mind, you have the feeling or perception of "absolute nothingness" about the existence of the book. — Corvus
As I perceive the book existing on the desk, at the same time, I also perceive the book as not existing under the desk.
Generalising, to be able to perceive something somewhere, I must be able to perceive nothing somewhere else. — RussellA
Mainly because you wouldn't be able to talk about nothing if there weren'r something.Why is there something rather than nothing? — Ø implies everything
I don't remember having ever heard talking about "absolute" nothingness. When we say "nothingness" it's simply nothingness. As you say, nothingness is absence of everyting. That's all there is to it.one must contemplate absolute nothingness — Ø implies everything
Of course. But "absolute nothingness" is mainly a pleonasm, it is redundant, as I explained above.This "concept" is often deemed oxymoronic. For something to exist/be true, it must be a thing. If absolute nothingness is a thing, it would entail its own non-existence — Ø implies everything
A book at one moment in time can only exist in one location. For example, in the morning, it exists on the desk. But in order for it to exist on the desk, it cannot exist anywhere other than on the desk, for example, under the desk or ten metres to the right of the desk.
As I perceive the book existing on the desk, at the same time, I also perceive the book as not existing under the desk.
Generalising, to be able to perceive something somewhere, I must be able to perceive nothing somewhere else. — RussellA
But the universe will contain no objects, — universeness
You can perceive the essence of the Absolute Nothingness via Husserl's phenomenological method called Bracketing, which is to bracket the distracting details of the perception such as the book, existence, the table ...etc, and just concentrating on the subjective experience of Absolute Nothingness - i.e. {the non-existence} of the book at that moment of your perception. — Corvus
All you've succeeded in doing is making the grammatical point that if there is something then there is not nothing. — Banno
But here we aren't doing ontology exactly. We're just talking about what we observe about how the mind works. — frank
Well, absolute nothingness is not just a mental negation of something, it is actually the negation of something. That's what it is defined as, and any would-be referent would correspond to that definition. — Ø implies everything
The void is no-thing, so we understand the void as the negative or opposite of things. — frank
I was offering support for your position. — jgill
I don't see how. You seemed to offer a counter-example to my claim that absolute nothingness is impossible. — Ø implies everything
There seems to be a family resemblance between Bracketing and Nominalism. — RussellA
(The philosopher Christian) Wolff became known throughout Europe as a martyr of reason and the Enlightenment, thereby only increasing his fame. The Crown Prince of Prussia, Friedrich II (later Frederick the Great), commissioned a French translation of Wolff’s so-called ‘German Metaphysics’ in 1736, and rumour has it that he read it so often that his pet monkey Mimi threw it into the fire out of jealousy. — The Great, Forgotten Wolff
When an object changes from existence to non-existence (the book on the table), the property of the object changes from extension to non-extension. — Corvus
Wolf must have affected greatly the Kant's system, but probably in opposition way? — Corvus
Parmenides argued against Heraclitus that, far from everything being flux, change is not possible at all: in order for A to change into B, A would have to disappear into nothingness and B emerge out of nothingness. Nothingness does not exist, so change does not exist. The nothingness that Parmenides was denying perhaps has a contemporary parallel in the notion of the nothingness outside of the universe (vacuum is not nothingness in this sense). It is not clear that such a notion makes any sense, and this was roughly the Parmenidean point. Furthermore, for the ancient Greeks, to think about something or to refer to something was akin to pointing to it, and it is not possible to point at nothing. For a modern parallel to this, consider the difficulties that Russell or Fodor (and many others) have had accounting for representing nothing or something that is false
Absolute nothingness is most definitely impossible, but that is of no consequence. You see, absolute nothingness is only impossible if there is something to begin with.
Of course. But "absolute nothingness" is mainly a pleonasm, it is redundant, as I explained above.
As a Nominalist, rather than a Platonic Realist, that's my present understanding of the universe today, in that there are no such things as objects in the world outside the mind. What we perceive as a book only exists in the mind. What exists in the world outside the mind are elementary particles and elementary forces existing in time and space.
What about the interior of the empty set? — jgill
"Existence" is a complex word that leads to trouble here. When people say "all times exist" I think they generally want to say "all times are real." And this I agree with. But that doesn't mean that events don't occur (exist) at just the times that they exist. The time dimension becomes meaningless if it doesn't tell us when things occur. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Which would seem to entail for you that "absolute nothingness is [not] most definitely possible," if anything exists of necessity. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But is proving that nothing necessarily doesn't exist the same thing as proving the necessity of existence? Tricky. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps we only prove the necessity of a bare something, sheer being. But then, according to Hegel, this is all we need to kick off the rest. — Count Timothy von Icarus
What about the interior of the empty set? — jgill
I thought this was meant as a counter-example — Ø implies everything
But outside the mind, what connects atom A to atom B but not to atom C?
If there is nothing outside the mind that preferentially connects atom A to any other particular atom, then objects as we know them don't exist outside the mind.
Outside our minds, atoms exist but not objects (treating the "atom" as a figure of speech for something that does physically exist) — RussellA
I think my argument can be simplified to this:
Absolute nothingness is impossible, but it would not be impossible if it were not for the existence of something. — Ø implies everything
if it were not for the existence of something. — Ø implies everything
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