Perhaps, because we are not yet dead.

What does "something" denote or indicate? — Corvus

Anything that is not nothing.

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

Anything that is not nothing. — Ø implies everything

I tried to analyse the statement further with logical reasoning, and the conclusion I got is, it is neither true nor false. Therefore it is not a valid proposition.

Thus, we are left without an answer to why there is something rather than nothing. Yet, I do not think this entails any paradoxes, nor does it allow for skepticism about whether something exists or not. All that is threatened is that there may be no ultimate reason for existence; it may be that reality is a brute fact. — Ø implies everything

For the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?",  I feel that we can get the answer for the reasons for the most existence by inductive and deductive reasoning.  For example, the book exists in my room, because I bought it, it had been written by the author, printed by the publisher, and sold by Amazon ... etc etc.

But there are some existences with their properties, which are out of the boundaries of our reasoning capability in finding out their reasons for the existence with conclusive certainty such as the earth, mountains, seas, sky, space, the planets, galaxies and Gods so on.

These entities are just too old, far in distance, massive in size, or abstract for our reason to manage to work out the possible answers.  The only answers we can get would be either from the scientific conjectures or religious myths, which don't convince our reasoning system with the conclusive assurance.

Therefore we are forced to go back to Kant's CPR written in  the mid 1700s, and nod our heads to "Thing-in-Itself", and the limitation of human reasoning as declared by him.

In answering this question, one must contemplate absolute nothingness, that is, the non-existence of everything. 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, which would mean absolute nothingness would be true and untrue at the same time: a contradiction. If absolute nothingness is not a thing, then it cannot exist/be true. — Ø implies everything

The principal premise of your argument is: "For something to exist/be true, it must be
a thing." To consider the soundness of your conclusion we need to understand the soundness of this premise. Why do you believe that existence necessarily consists of "things"? If you take a look at "process philosophy" you will see that this class of philosophers deny the truth of this premise. They place activity as prior to and therefore not dependent on being. From this perspective it is possible to have existence without things.

However, in your conclusion, you move to qualify nothing with "absolute". This qualification is not supported by your argument, which restricts existence to things. Your argument premises that existence consists only of things, then it classes "absolute nothing" as a thing. So it fails to address all of reality which falls between things and true absolute nothingness, which is activity, process. Then you take an obviously false premise, that the nothingness you are talking about is "absolute", and proceed from that.

The premise is clearly false, because your principal premise has already restricted "existence" to things, therefore not an absolute nothingness. So "existence", by this definition is not absolute. In reality therefore, your argument proceeds from two contradictory premises, the first being that existence is restricted to things, and the second being that "absolute nothingness is a thing".

The real question is if it is possible to super-size your nothing burger.

You may be interested in reading this then: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary/p1

Also a follow up here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12847/if-a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary-what-does-that-entail-for-the-universes-origins/p1

Nothingness is inconceivable by definition. — Tom Storm

But that's not right, since here's a thread about nothingness.

Something is going on here, to do with nothingness. The folk posting here have something in mind, when they talk about nothingness.

Yesterday, upon my chair
I saw nothing that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
I wish that nothing would go away!

Were I to sit upon my chair
Would nothing again be there?
Or lack of nothing be gone away?
A curious thing, what can I say? :cool:

Something is going on here, to do with nothingness. The folk posting here have something in mind, when they talk about nothingness. — Banno

They do. But isn't that the problem? Can we talk about nothingness, other than to say there is a concept we imagine wherein there is a total absence of something? We talk about something with great ease and then posit that the opposite to something must exist.

Is it like a square circle? A triangle with four sides? A mere concatenation of words that can't be given form, cannot be constructed or worked with?

I think that sounds right, but you have more expertise in such matters than I do. Would you define it this way?

I'm re-thinking it. Is it like triangles with four sides, or is it like $\sqrt{-1}$?

I tried to analyse the statement further with logical reasoning, and the conclusion I got is, it is neither true nor false. Therefore it is not a valid proposition. — Corvus

Could you elaborate with a formal proof? If you want, I can try to formalize my proof as well.

I like the idea of a triangle with four sides - that seems a match for what is happening.

If someone says to you - Why is there something rather than nothing? - what would be your usual response?

"So that you can ask silly questions."

I was waiting for when my undefined use of thing would come bite me in the ass.

By thing, I mean anything that could exist, be it a process or a concept or whatever. So, if absolute nothingness is a thing, then it would mean it could exist, which would make it self-contradictory. It cannot exist, because its existence would imply its non-existence. Thus, absolute nothingness is impossible.

But its impossibility, is as I argued for, not important. If absolute nothingness was in fact the case, then it would not be a thing, and any paradoxes regarding that would also not be a thing.

The real question is if it is possible to super-size your nothing burger. — GRWelsh

Maybe, but I wouldn't want to. Too many empty calories.

So long as there is something, absolute nothingness as a concept is like a four-sided triangle. If there had been absolutely nothing however, absolute nothingness would be like

Is nothing one or many? Can there be several nothings? The mind can see similarities between objects and make categories of them (such as species and genus). If Spinoza's principle that “all determination is negation” is true, then the further we abstract from things of the world, the more we reach a single concept of being. For Spinoza this ground is one and the concept should accord to one. Being and nothingness have aspects in common such that a painting paint brush has to the canvas; it takes what is potential and makes it something. The potential is limitless. And all nothing knows how to do is determine as time rolls on and the world operates according to it's basic laws

By thing, I mean anything that could exist, be it a process or a concept or whatever. So, if absolute nothingness is a thing, then it would mean it could exist, which would make it self-contradictory. It cannot exist, because its existence would imply its non-existence. Thus, absolute nothingness is impossible. — Ø implies everything

What you are saying, is that we ought to conceive of absolute nothingness as something other than a thing. No problem there, right? But then you define "thing" in such a way that if it is not a thing, it does not exist. Therefore you want us to conceive of absolute nothingness as other than existent. There's no problem there either, but it does not mean that such a concept would be impossible, self-contradictory, or in any way incoherent. We can and do conceive of many non-existent things.

Could you elaborate with a formal proof? If you want, I can try to formalize my proof as well. — Ø implies everything

Sure. I will make up my own analyses of the reasoning, and come back with it. Please forward your formal proof. Thanks.

In type theory as used in computer programming languages, "nothing" is interpreted as a type denoted $\bot$ that has no values but that can be eliminated for values of every type, which is in semantic alignment with your name "nothing implies everything". Practically speaking, this can be interpreted as referring to a function that allocates memory for the values of any input type

$\mathit allocate : \lambda (A : Type) , \bot \to A$

Likewise, for 'destroying' elements of a type, i.e to free their memory, we have

$\mathit deallocate : \lambda (A : Type), A \to \bot$

"Deallocate" can therefore be regarded as the 'negation' of "Deallocate" and vice-versa.

In particular, $A$ can be taken to be $\bot$, which apparently denotes useless instances of the above functions that do nothing (since we officially have no values for $\bot$ to read or write with). This is because the meaning of $\bot$ in our programming language is to denote the mysterious origin and destination of the values in our programs, i.e. the external compiler/OS that our programs depend on for resources, but whose resources cannot be talked about or reasoned with within our programming language.

Yet suppose the following isomorphism is taken to be true and can be manipulated within our programming language.

$\bot \simeq (\bot \to \bot)$

This equivalence is regarded as true in models of classical linear logic. Then this implies that $\bot$ can be iteratively expanded as a potentially infinite list of ... values of some sort? - no, for that possibility was already forbidden - then of memory addresses for storing values!. In which case, if we allowed our programming language to manipulate memory addresses directly (e.g as in C/C++) then we can then interpret $\bot$ within our programming language, and consequently give meaning to and take control of allocate/deallocate in the intuitive and practical way, For example by defining

$\mathit allocate \ \Bbb{N} : \bot \to \Bbb{N}$
$\mathit \ \bot = 0$
$\mathit \ \bot \to \bot = 1$
$\mathit \ \bot \to \bot \to \bot = 2$
$...$

And paired with a respective definition for 'deallocate' that destroys these values by freeing their corresponding memory addresses and then returning them.

So to summarise the above examples, "Nothing" initially referred to the mysterious effect of a destroyed value of a type and to the mysterious cause of an initialized value of a type within a programming language that could only talk about values. But by expanding the semantics of our language, we eliminated dead talk of "Nothingness" for talk about the interactive duality of "type values" and "memory addresses" .

I think the lesson is, "nothingness" denotes epistemic ignorance and/or semantic scoping and can be eliminated from empirical and rational discourse.

I was not explaining why anyone was wrong. — Ø implies everything

You are wrong.

"Explaining why anyone was wrong" is a requirement for every post you make on tpf. And the more political and divisive your reason for your interlocutor's failure to understand their own stupidity, the more points.

My post deliberately avoids taking a stance on whether or not absolute nothingness is a thing.

Okay, absolute nothingness is either a thing or not. If it is a thing, it is self-contradictory, and thus cannot exist. If it is not a thing, it cannot exist (by my earlier definition). Thus, absolute nothingness cannot exist no matter what. So, something exists, right?

No. Proving absolute nothingness cannot exist does not entail something exists. Something and nothing can not exist at the same time, and any contradiction you may believe exists in that would not exist if everything did not exist.

A proof must have content; it must assume the existence of something. When considering the inexistence of everything, one cannot disprove it, because that would be assuming the existence of something, meaning one is assuming the falsity of what one is trying to disprove to begin with; that is, one is just begging the question.

Writing "absolute" in front of "nothing" only serves to obfuscate. — Banno

:up:
Well, at least someone else besides me noticed and commented on this redundant --and, as you say, obfuscating-- "absolute" thing. As if there is a "relative nothingness" or "partial nothingness". Which I never heard talking about, not in this thread or elsewhere. Of course, because it has no meaning. Therefore, "absolute nothingness" has no meaning either. And it was not used as a figure of speech or mentioned just en passent, but it is included in the title of the topic itself and appears to be an important element in the OP's description.
It is both surprising and very disappointing to me to see how people, esp. in a place like this, can pass by these things without noticing them or commenting on them ...

It is both surprising and very disappointing to me to see how people, esp. in a place like this, can pass by these things without noticing them or commenting on them ... — Alkis Piskas

Some people have better things to do than to quibble about what phrases are the best when the meaning is clear. Also, if you have any experience with discourse on the topic of nothingness, you know that a lot of people do not realize what degree of nothingness is being discussed. Some talk about empty space, some talk about the absence of all physical things, yet the presence of immaterial things, like logical laws. All of these notions are examples of relative nothingness; that is, nothingness in relation to something specific; something is missing, but not everything. Absolute nothingness then refers to the absence of everything.

If you disagree that the qualification of absolute is helpful, then that's fine. But do you/we not have more important things to talk about? I'm sure there are others who felt the qualification was unhelpful but didn't care enough to comment, given they had more substantive things to comment on. This is not submitted under the Philosophy of Language category, after all.

Absolute is actually an absolutely important quantifier in this thread. Let us suppose that "Absolute nothingness" was defined as a concept for the state of the universe before it was born.

In this instance, "Nothingness" alone would be inadequate to describe the prior state of the existence of the universe, because it would be the only existence in the pre-universe.

It only makes sense then, "Absolute nothingness" would be the very right concept as the only and pure state of nothingness.

,

Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".

But is it a real one? When you ask if it is real, what are you sugesting? No, it's a fake; it's an illusion; it's a forgery; it's a phoney, a counterfeit, a mirage... What is real and what isn't is decided in each case by contrast; there is no single criteria. — Banno

Perhaps we can deal with "nothign" in a similar way, by asking what it is that there is nothing of...

He has nothing in the bank; I've nothing in my pocket; there is nothing in a vacuum.

What there is nothing of is decided by what is absent.

Absolute nothing is a non-starter.

Curious, but a shame it's so obscure. Nothing as a subtype of all types.

Perhaps we can deal with "nothign" in a similar way, by asking what it is that there is nothing of...

He has nothing in the bank; I've nothing in my pocket; there is nothing in a vacuum.

What there is nothing of is decided by what is absent.

Absolute nothing is a non-starter. — Banno

Zero came from the Babylonians. They used something like an abacus to do inventories and then would record the abacus layout on clay tablets. That's the origin of a mark that indicates zero. It revolutionized math, which received the stamp of abstraction from its association with money. I think a case could be made that money is ground zero for all abstractions.

If by "absolute nothing" we mean the void, it's obviously a useful idea. Einstein used it.