The hole paradox I came up with

Echogem222

The Paradox:
(Edited for clarity): The hole paradox arises from a misconception about the nature of empty space. While a hole might initially seem to be just empty space, it is not a true void but rather a space defined by its lack of something, such as the absence of material or substance. This leads to a paradox: How can we define a hole as a type of nothing when empty space itself is considered a positive value?

In traditional ontology, objects are typically defined by their properties and characteristics. However, a hole lacks these defining properties and exists as a space where something could be, but isn't. This raises the question: How can something that appears to be nothing have properties?

This paradox challenges our understanding of identity and existence by highlighting the complexities of defining and understanding concepts that are defined by their negation or absence.

Solution:
A "hole" is a word which is used for two different things, but people often think you can use the word hole to mean both of those two different things at the same time (which is the absence of dirt and the ground around the hole affecting the value of the hole).

In math, a hole would not be the dirt around the hole when trying to figure out how much dirt you have in a certain space, it would be 0 (because you cannot understand it as being dirt). But if you're trying to figure out how much space you have available, it would be a positive value (something you understand as being available space), and the dirt would be 0 (something you don't understand as being available space). However, in the case of the hole being a positive value in math, the dirt around the hole would be right next to the borders of the hole, giving the dimensions needed to understand the amount of space in the hole via math formulas. But even in that situation, the dirt is not something you understand as a positive value, it's the exact point that you can't understand which causes you to "see" the dimensions of the hole via the max limit of the space available (the edges of the space).

But if you mix those two types of holes up, you see it as both a positive and non-value, or in other words, a type of nothing you understand, which is illogical because nothing is the absence of understanding.

PoeticUniverse

There cannot be spacers or holes of 'Nothing' in the Permanent or in its rearrangements into temporaries; all is continuous field.

Echogem222

↪PoeticUniverse

By that reasoning you are saying that a circle is a square at the same time because they're both shapes. In other words, since they're both similar to each other, they must be the same thing.

PoeticUniverse

By that reasoning you are saying that a circle is a square at the same time because they're both shapes. In other words, since they're both similar to each other, they must be the same thing. — Echogem222

No, not said. 'Nothing' has no existence and 'it' cannot even be meant.

Echogem222

↪PoeticUniverse

By that reasoning, you're saying you understand everything already, preventing what you once didn't understand being equal to nothing, becoming something you now do understand. With that, there would be no gaps in your reasoning, but to make such a claim requires a lot of evidence to back it up.

Pierre-Normand

When I was a graduate student in philosophy, I read a few very fun papers by Achille Varzi on the ontology of holes (and a very short and goofy one on time travels). He also has written a book - Holes and Other Superficialities, MIT Press, 1995 - with Roberto Casati.

Echogem222

↪Pierre-Normand

Thank you for sharing, I'll be sure to check it out in the future.

PoeticUniverse

By that reasoning, you're saying you understand everything already, preventing what you once didn't understand being equal to nothing, becoming something you now do understand. With that, there would be no gaps in your reasoning, but to make such a claim requires a lot of evidence to back it up. — Echogem222

Yes, indeed, I understood Everything when science confirmed my First Philosophy, but this thread is about holes (which cannot be, because 'nothing' cannot have existence), unless you want to broaden it to the understanding of the Eternal/Permanent Basis of All and it's temporaries, and on up to life now and into the future.

Echogem222

↪PoeticUniverse

Since you're so certain of yourself, you can't be reasoned with until you experience for yourself the error in your reasoning which can't be done through words. However, given that you think I'm saying that nothing can have existence means that you didn't actually fully read my post, you likely skim read it, as the majority of people I come across seem to always do. Which just adds to the likelihood that you are wrong in your reaction to my post. But I'm sure to you, you're not going to care, and you're going to continue to think my post isn't worth your time given how headstrong you came into this discussion, which is quite sad to me.

PoeticUniverse

How can something that seems to be nothing have properties? — Echogem222

The hole is not 'nothing'; there is no paradox; it has quantum field. 'Nothing' cannot have properties, much less be. Your other "sure's" don't apply. In this thread's terminology, "nothing" is also standing in for not understanding, yet I understand All.

Echogem222

↪PoeticUniverse

That was myself explaining the paradox, in other words, that was not the solution. Had you read the solution section, you would have understood that.

180 Proof

Imagine trying to define a hole. — Echogem222

From a 2022 thread Does nothingness exist? ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/707639

examples: a
donut or
hole in a bucket / boat or
negative space or
randomness (i.e. total symmetries) or
blindspot or ...

IMO, no "paradox". Check (correct) your assumptions / premises.

Patterner

Old riddle.
It takes three men two hours to dig a hole. How long does it take them to dig half a hole?

Echogem222

↪180 Proof

It's truly amazing how many of you don't read the whole post before commenting, only skim reading it at best.

unenlightened

A word has meaning to the extent that it makes a distinction between that which it indicates, and that which it does not indicate.

To exist is to stand out, to be distinguishable from - let's say as vaguely as possible - "the background". Thus a hole in the road, for example, stands out as a feature from the background levelness of the rest of the road. This is the opposite standing out, geometrically, to the way a mountain stands out from the plain or an island from the sea.

There is no need to resort to quantum mechanics to understand basic English. Anyone who thinks that holes don't exist should be dropped down a mineshaft until they realise and admit their mistake.

Echogem222

↪unenlightened

There is no need to resort to quantum mechanics to understand basic English. Anyone who thinks that holes don't exist should be dropped down a mineshaft until they realize and admit their mistake. — unenlightened

You're talking about a specific hole in this instance when there are two different types of holes:

Non-value hole= not being matter/dirt/etc. and not understanding how it could be any of those things.

Positive value hole = being available space and understanding why

To make it simpler, let's call a non-value hole a NV hole, and a positive value hole a PV hole.

NV holes and PV holes are both holes, but that's just like saying that squares and circles are both shapes, they're not the same thing, but they have similarities. In both types of holes, there is a non-understanding which exists, in NV holes it's the hole itself, and in PV holes it's the matter around the hole which can't be understood at the exact same time you're understanding the space in the hole.

In other words, if say you had 2 holes, one being a NV hole and another being a PV hole that were both circular shaped, the edges of the holes would be the same shape. But the NV hole would be just slightly larger in size than the PV hole because the measurements you would make in the NV hole would be within the dirt itself (or whatever matter the material is), but the PV hole would be measured within the empty space.

Now since I've defined what I'm talking about this much do you finally get it?

An analogy would be struggling to find an empty space in a crowded parking lot. Driving around, looking for a spot and finally finding one that's empty. That would be something because it's a PV hole.

unenlightened

Now since I've defined what I'm talking about this much do you finally get it? — Echogem222

No, the more you define things the less understandable you become.

Take a coffee cup. there is a hole that I can fill with coffee, and then there is a hole on the side I can put my fingers through to pick it up which is formed by the handle. These are topologically distinct, because the handle-hole one can pass something through, whereas where the coffee goes in, it has to come out the same way. But both holes are distinguished by and from their surroundings, or to put it another way 'a hole has to be a hole in something', and this seems to make the distinction between PV and NV impossible to sustain, beyond the way you arbitrarily decide to regard a particular hole.

Lionino

when empty space itself is considered a positive value? — Echogem222

That means nothing (pun intended).

How can something that appears to be nothing have properties? — Echogem222

A hole in a mug is not nothing, it is the shape that the material makes.

A paradox is a situation that results in something impossible or contradictory. This ain't one.

No, the more you define things the less understandable you become. — unenlightened

This post by Count seems related https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/895615

Echogem222

↪unenlightened

Ah, I see, you wish to keep things vague, but what you're doing is just a straw person argument. If you don't want to bother to understand how what I'm saying is true, fine, but why comment?

180 Proof

↪unenlightened

:100:

A paradox is a situation that results in something impossible or contradictory. This ain't one. — Lionino

:up: :up:

↪Echogem222

Weak dodge. Your so-called "solution" doesn't matter ‐ isn't worth considering – if there is not an actual problem (or its merely a pseudo-problem) in the first place.

fishfry

How can we define a hole as a type of nothing when empty space itself is considered a positive value? — Echogem222

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/holes/

Echogem222

↪fishfry

Read the whole thing, but it did not counter my post any. Unless of course you didn't read my whole post and just assumed I said things I didn't, misunderstanding the context, and using the strawperson argument.

fishfry

Read the whole thing, but it did not counter my post any. Unless of course you didn't read my whole post and just assumed I said things I didn't, misunderstanding the context, and using the strawperson argument. — Echogem222

Just posting the link since SEP has a lot to say about holes. Guilty as charged on he rest of it. Guess I'll go crawl back into my, uh, hole.

Echogem222

↪fishfry

Thank you for being honest about it.

ENOAH

↪Echogem222

While I am not a logician in any sense, and ought not comment on the paradox, qua "paradox." I think both your paradox, and the responses, illustrate the same thing. That we arrive at all of our (temporary) "conclusions" through the fundamentally empty and fleeting movement of words, we are bound to run into walls of confusion (at best), "absurdity" seeming impossibility, at worst.

To me, that is not very troubling or surprising. What is more troubling and surprising, is that we "think" those walls are not there when things appear to run smoothly in spite of them (because the intended function of the word seems to have been satisfied), and on that basis, declare (that their use--these fleeting and empty representations with walls), not just point to "truth(s)" but are certainly True.

Echogem222

↪ENOAH

Yes, that is the paradox in a nutshell (if I'm understanding you correctly), when you keep things vague and generalize what a hole is, it's a paradox, but when you get specific and realize there are two types of holes, you realize the paradox resolves itself.

The value in understanding this "paradox" is to better understand what the word "nothing" means since many people think that nothing means something which can be understood, something that other things cannot logically come from, when in reality, it's just complete non-understanding.

Take for example this phrase, "Nothing is greater than infinity" if you think you understand nothing as I just explained, you would think that infinity is all that there is at the most, when in reality, if something above infinity exists, we wouldn't be able to understand what that is. But because it's a possibility something greater than infinity exists actually is enough to prove something greater than infinity does exist, it's just not something we can understand, because if infinity were all that there is at the most, we would not say that nothing is greater than infinity, we would instead say something like, "infinity is the most there is" without saying anything else. So the fact something greater than infinity could exist is enough to understand that something greater than infinity does exist.

There is nothing greater or less than nothing, because if not, then that would mean that nothing isn't nothing. That is the most we can possibly understand.

ENOAH

when you keep things vague and generalize what a hole is, it's a paradox, but when you get specific and realize there are two types of holes, you realize the paradox resolves itself. — Echogem222

since many people think that nothing means something which can be understood, something that other things cannot logically come from, when in reality, it's just complete non-understanding. — Echogem222

There is nothing greater or less than nothing, because if not, then that would mean that nothing isn't nothing. That is the most we can possibly understand. — Echogem222

:up:

How many "philosophical" hypotheses (including, admittedly, any that I may entertain) rest on just such a thing as you have illustrated; that is, on a necessary (yet, not necessarily) presumption about meaning?

punos

↪Echogem222

A hole is defined by its boundary and volume. A hole does not exist on its own, and must be surrounded or constrained by something to fulfill its definition of a hole. A hole is not a non-value, but a negative value.

Consider a flat ground of dirt, and you decide to take a shovel and dig a hole in the dirt. What you have done is taken the equilibrium of the flat ground and disrupted it by displacing a certain amount of dirt from a certain location onto another location. The dirt you excavated has a positive value, and the hole you left behind has an opposite and equal negative value. If you take the excavated dirt and place it back in the hole, you now have restored the equilibrium of the ground back to zero.

ground = 0
hole = -1
excavated dirt = +1

Lionino

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/holes/

I went through the article and it is a whole lot of nothing, just juggling with language to solve a problem that doesn't exist. No wonder all the references are from the last 100 years.

Echogem222

↪ENOAH

I'm not sure since I don't know every philosophical hypotheses there are.

Echogem222

↪punos

You're misunderstanding how values work. using your own math:

ground = 0 (why zero, makes no sense)
hole = -1 (if the hole is -1, then it would take +2 to become 1, not just +1)
excavated dirt = +1 (not enough to fill the hole then, which doesn't make sense since removing this value caused the hole to be)

If you take away dirt and create a hole, that dirt taken away has the positive value of being dirt (so +1), but the hole left behind is not dirt, so it's equal to 0. The ground around the hole (if dirt) is also a positive value, that had more value when the hole had not yet been created, by how much, I don't know.

So to fill the hole, you would just need +1.

Let's say that the ground had the value of 75 mounds of dirt before any dirt was removed from it, but when the hole was made due to dirt being removed, the ground lost a value of 1, hence becoming 74.

The hole paradox I came up with

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