For what it's worth, like a mathematician, I see no difference between existence and logical consistency and so I regard both these concepts as one and the same. Then the sentence "No object exists" can be reformulated as "No object is logically consistent", which is evidently and necessarily false. There are plenty of logically consistent objects; every object that is identical to itself is logically consistent and therefore exists (as opposed to, for example, the famous "square circle", which is a circle that is not a circle, a logically inconsistent and therefore nonexistent object). — litewave
Do you know of Nishida Kitaro? — Gregory
The "nothingness" of God is "nothingness through excellence” (nihil per excellentiam) or nihil per infinitatem (“nothingness on account of infinity"). This is "nothing" because nothing can be said of It; God transcends everything. Any positive statement is limiting and thus inappropriate. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But then we also have the nothing of non-existence, “nothing through privation” (nihil per privationem). At first glance, it seems to me like you are dealing with the latter (privational nothingness) in the OP, but upon further consideration, it becomes hard to say. — Count Timothy von Icarus
:up: :up:I am simply saying the lack proof for the necessity of the existence of something; that is, we lack proof that reality is not a brute fact. — Ø implies everything
I read your OP from 2 years ago. — Ø implies everything
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. — Ø implies everything
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 you would like to discuss there, I gladly will. I make a rule not to derail other people's threads. — Philosophim
However, isn't logic the best assessment of reality that we have? — Philosophim
I totally forgot about this thread. Nice to hear back from you.I don't quite get your argument, but what you wrote in the quote is wrong. Absolute nothingness is oxymoronic because of the existence of something. Remove everything, and suddenly absolute nothingness is no longer oxymoronic, because absolute nothingness is nothing. — Ø implies everything
I feel your arguments seem to be still unsound. It starts from the wrong premises. When you say "absolute nothingness", you cannot even make up a proposition and assign it to an empty set. For example, I have a cookie tin here. It used to have some cookies in it. I can make a proposition A= "The tin has 3 different type of cookies." A = {C,M,T}A thing is something that can be referred to, by whatever means, be they perceptual, emotive or conceptual. A conceptual reference is defining something. Therefore, the state that is absolute nothingness is a thing, by virtue of being referred to by its definition. Its definition is formalized further down.
EE is the set of all propositions true for some corresponding state; a complete description of that state. If a proposition PP is true in EE, we have that [P]∈E[P]∈E.
AA is the set corresponding to the state of absolute nothingness. The definition of AA is as follows: A=∅A=∅. That means for all propositions PP, we have that P∉AP∉A.
Contradiction:
(A=∅)∧([A=∅]∈A)(A=∅)∧([A=∅]∈A)
So, done deal? We have proved why something must exist, right? Well, look above you; what do you see? Something. Let's denote that something as CC; that is, CC denotes the proposition above.
Now, we know that CC is true, by virtue of simple logic. However, if AA truly was instantiated... Well:
C∉A — Ø implies everything
Absolute nothingness means brutely there is not even you, or the world.Hence the proposition is unthinkable. Is it possible to think about such state or a concept? — Corvus
But then everything would have popped into existence simultaneously, and contradictions would have arisen. How did the universe remove these contradictions? How did it choose one thing over the other? — Ø implies everything
The purely logical donkey, when faced with two equally voluptuous hay stacks, starves to death. — Ø implies everything
Absolute nothingness is most definitely impossible — Ø implies everything
If you could define the concept "absolute" and "nothingness" separately, then it would help for getting more concrete perspectives on "absolute nothingness" i.e. as a combined idea.I hope this cleared a few things up. I am looking to formalize my framework of actuality and hypotheticality being used here, so maybe this will be clearer in the future. — Ø implies everything
In mathematics all logically consistent objects exist simultaneously and there is no contradiction. — litewave
So what? There is nothing logically inconsistent about starving to death. — litewave
We cannot understand how that could be, but what can happen is not dependent on our understanding or lack of understanding. — Fooloso4
It's more like "democratic chalk", a mere concatenation of words, with the folk hereabouts puzzling over what it might mean; as if meaning were something that was discovered rather than decided. — Banno
Hegel's "pure being" is neither actual nor potential but instead completely conceptual because we can't hold it in our minds without losing it to pure (absolute) nothingness. — Gregory
Sure, but in the real world, a banana and an apple cannot exist with their centers overlapping. — Ø implies everything
Because such a world would be logically inconsistent, with respect to the laws that characterize its structure. — litewave
Our minds require a kind of isomorphism to reality in order to allow for logic, which is necessary for survival. — Ø implies everything
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