Yes, and also just a failure to execute a goal. I have issues with people lauding Nynorsk as something it never was, and even less is today (since the dialects it was based on have developed faster than Nynorsk can keep up with).

I find praise of Nynorsk to be naïve and ignorant.

In other words the exclusion only becomes significant in relation to an attitude of dialectical pride, and, the exclusion is significant to you — Metaphysician Undercover

I see your point, but it is not the mechanism behind my dislike for Nynorsk. The exclusion of the Northern dialects is significant because it is an instance of ethnolinguistic discrimination. It is significant because it is a message; "you people are not my people, you people do not belong here, you people are not worthy of representation, etc."

It's not about the dialects, it's about the people that speak them.

The main reason you gave for dislike of Nynorsk was the way that the author treated certain dialects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you referring to Fosse when you say author, or Ivar Aasen? If the former, then you need to re-read the conversation. If the latter, then your argument falls apart given the fact that I do not speak one of the dialects excluded by Ivar Aasen. In fact, the dialect is speak is one of the dialects best represented by Nynorsk, an epitomic example being ikkje, meaning not; which is written in Nynorsk exactly as how my dialect pronounces it.

Imagine if every individual insisted "I will only use my language" and each time two people met there was a lot of resistance toward compromise. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is indeed a factor in Norway; dialectical pride, that is. We are often told to hang onto our dialect when we move. Personally, I have not done too good of a job with that, especially when I have moved to places with an easier dialect (if the brain can reduce computational complexity, it often will).

So, I do not think your description fits me too well, nor most people of my generation. I do have some dialectical pride, as I think my dialect is beautiful, but I am not so proud that I'll actively resist myself going over to another dialect.

The attitudes towards Nynorsk and Bokmål are quite separate from this, however. Nynorsk/bokmål are not competing with the dialects; the Norwegian dialects have no standardizes written form, and Nynorsk and Bokmål have no standardized spoken form. Nynorsk is the language that fits my dialect the best, so if dialectical pride played a part, I would prefer Nynorsk. Yet, I prefer Bokmål, because at least its construction was not as stupid as that of Nynorsk.

Me too, and I usually felt alone because I never found a person of my age (I am of the millennial generation) thinking in a way like I do... And, people tended to isolate me obviously, because we are young and there is no time to think about this! Since I read Mishima, I have seen suicide as an idealised-beautiful ending. Furthermore, Fosse helps me to see it even clearer. — javi2541997

It's a shame you don't have people you can talk to about this IRL.

I think no activity is above scrutiny, including that of being alive. How can we scrutinize it without considering the alternative, to the degree we can? I find that thinking about death makes life better, it makes me live it more fully. I take healthy but scary risks most wouldn't simply because I don't take it for granted that life is inherently worth living. Maybe it is, but I am not so sure. So, I make sure to make life worth living, even if that means risking it. This is of course not promoting reckless actions, because we don't have a right to risk other's lives, nor are there that many things worth risking one's life for.

The more I hear about Fosse, the more interested I am in reading his stuff.

As for your question about how Norwegians look at suicide; I have some trouble answering, since it is a relative matter. I don't know how taboo it is in Norway compared to the rest of the world, but it definitely isn't so taboo that people won't casually mention that a person that happens to be discussed killed themselves. Coincidentally, this happened a few hours actually. The conversation happened to include a random person my grandparents knew, and they mentioned that he killed himself. Now, when I say casually, I don't mean that people talk about it flippantly in cases regarding actual suicides. When actual suicides are mentioned, they are mentioned in either a serious or neutral tone.

But suicide in general is topic often joked about with younger people in Norway (millenials & Gen Z), but I reckon this more flippant attitude to the topic is generally more prevalent with younger people around the world, not just in Norway.

As for romanticizing or legitimizing suicide, I would wager that Norway does it more than e.g. the U.S. First of all, Norway is quite secular, so that's a factor demonizing/stimgatizing suicide almost entirely removed. Beyond that however, I base this observation on my personal experience versus what I've seen in American media. I have for example mentioned to my family that if certain illnesses were to befall me, I would just kill myself or get euthanasia if possible (which is not legal in Norway currently I believe). My family and friends have never reacted with shock to this, and if anything seem to respect it, though perhaps not to think it a superior choice.

Lastly, I'd like to mention that there seems to be a general empathy/understanding of people who have comitted suicide among Norwegians. Maybe I am just projecting, but when the topic comes up, it seems like people have a face of "too bad they couldn't resist", or something like that. Personally, I have some suicidal ideations (though no suicidal thoughts), and as a result, I don't find cases of suicide (regardless of how well the person seemed to be) shocking. I know how fundamentally disappointing reality can be, regardless of how good things are on paper; this attitude is something I feel is shared amongst Norwegians to some degree, but I have no idea if I am just projecting or not.

Yes, but also perhaps due to a diversity in the ethno-lingustic origins of the UK people. Gaelic, Brittonic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Latin and French influences makes for quite some dialectical diversity, I would think.

Both rejection and detachment, yes, which is not abnormal for Norwegians regarding Nynorsk, especially not those my age.

I reject Nynorsk because of its failure to do what it was supposed to do, and I am detached from the goal simply because I do not believe it achievable. Norwegian dialects are so diverse that any language that tries to capture it will just be pulled apart by opposing forces, winding up as a language of no-one.

I wonder if the dialects of Norway are more diverse than the dialects of the average country. Norway is a large country, and with a geography that tends to isolate communities. Therefore, I think there's a greater diversity of dialects in Norway than in most countries. In any case, the degree of dialectical diversity is why a programme like Nynorsk is doomed from the get-go.

I wonder how the silent language is understood, used and commonly established in the truly Norwegian language or Danish-influenced Bokmål. We were discussing this because it is interesting how Fosse distinguishes silence and pauses. — javi2541997

I am indeed Norwegian, but I don't quite understand your question. I think I'm lacking the context surrounding the meaning behind the silent language. I haven't heard Fosse's speech, but I am contemplating watching it.

We should be clear on the context: Norwegians have mainly written in Bokmål, and Fosse is a pioneer in writing instead in Nynorsk, a largely spoken, and a minority-use, language. So what he has done is to make his version of a vernacular language into a literary language. — mcdoodle

Nynorsk is not a spoken language. It is purely a written language; and I don't mean that practically; there is no standard, official way to pronounce Nynorsk words (the same is true for Bokmål). I am not too familiar with Fosse's work, but I don't think he writes with a vernacular language, and if he does, then he does not write Nynorsk.

That said, the creation of Nynorsk was meant to capture different Norwegian dialects, so as to create a truly Norwegian language, as opposed to the Danish-influenced Bokmål. So in that sense, what you write is kind of true. However, Ivar Aasen, in his quest to create a quintessentially Norwegian language, ignored the northern dialects due to their Sami influence. Given that the Sami people have been in Norway just as long as their Germanic counterparts, the Sami people, and northern Norwegians, are most definitely Norwegian. Therefore, Nynorsk is not really the written form of a true amalgamation of Norwegian speech, instead, it is just the vision of some racist cunt that made every Norwegian kid's schooling doubly shitty. But, it sure does look pretty!

How do you define (dis)order? The capacity for intentional change? There aren't too many definitions of order and disorder that generally confer with negentropy and entropy.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

What does "something" denote or indicate? — Corvus

Anything that is not nothing.

Sorry for the confusion. — jgill

No worries; it takes two for confusion :)

"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

I completely agree.

Which would seem to entail for you that "absolute nothingness is [not] most definitely possible," if anything exists of necessity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. Nothing is impossible because something happens to exist, regardless of if it had to or not.

But is proving that nothing necessarily doesn't exist the same thing as proving the necessity of existence? Tricky. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Proving that nothing necessarily does not exist has to assume the existence of something, because this proof requires something to be valid. This is what I am getting at when I'm saying that all the problems of nothingness arise only because there is something; and this is obviously true; whatever produces the problems is a subset of everything, and thus do not exist if there is absolutely nothing.

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

I agree with Hegel here.

I was referring to this:

What about the interior of the empty set? — jgill

I thought this was meant as a counter-example, but given what you're saying, I see now you were probably refuting it as an example.

The void is no-thing, so we understand the void as the negative or opposite of things. — frank

A void where you could place something into is not absolute nothingness, given that the action of placing something into it implies there was the potential for that action in the void. Thus, there was something, though not something physical (whatever physical means).

Absolute nothingness is not understood as the negation of something; it is the negation of something. Your claim is akin to saying "a square is understood as a shape of four connected and equally long sides", which is an understatement: that is what a square is! To say anything else would be to ascribe a referent to square that is not (fully) describable by the definition of a square, which would thus make the definition not a definition.

This kind of thinking comes from a confusion of descriptions and definitions. If one's perception is one's mode of referral, one would be referencing a referent with no definition. If one were to describe this referent, then one could be wrong; the referent is not referred to by one's description, but by one's perception; which one's description merely tries to symbolize through symbols that refer to other things. Thus, when describing percepts, one is comparing referents, and one could do this comparison incorrectly; one could misrepresent one's perception(s).

If however, conception is one's mode of referral, then there is no room for error. What would my conception be incorrect relative to? Itself? That would be nonsense. I could however subsequently describe the referent of the definition, and in this subsequent step, I could be wrong. If I decide to merge the incorrect descriptions with the definition, then I would have a new definition. The question is merely what I declare to be definition or not; the definition is me specifying the referent, not describing it, and thus I cannot go wrong.

So, the "referent" I am specifying is precisely the negation of something/everything. That is not my understanding/description of it; it IS it. Though it doesn't exist of course.

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.

It is contradictory to reify absolute nothingness, but it is of no consequence. All issues of absolute nothingness exist only because there is something; if there was nothing, there'd be no issues (literally).

All you've succeeded in doing is making the grammatical point that if there is something then there is not nothing. — Banno

You're almost right. All I've succeeded in doing is reducing this supposed answer to why is there something to the grammatical point you're mentioning. That is, your critique is highlighting the very same issue I am trying to highlight. If the impossibility of nothingness is entailed by the fact that there is something, then the argument "nothingness is impossible, thus something must exist" can be expanded into "something exists, thus nothingness is impossible, thus something must exist", and this of course leaves the first proposition unexplained. The first proposition is provably true, but it is nonetheless bereft of explanation.

The absolute is added in order to separate it from other, weaker conceptions of nothing, like the nothing of a vacuous void, for example.

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.

"Absolute nothingness is impossible from any perspective." We could all nod and move on. — unenlightened

I am not claiming absolute nothingness is possible from its own perspective; only that it is not impossible. It is not possible either. It isn't anything, nor is anything else. That's the problem. Our arguments for why there must be something presuppose there is something. Now, there happens to be something, so therefore there must be something. But that still leaves the question unanswered.

I might agree. True absolute nothingness, that is, absolute nothingness without anything to give it meaning, "is" an empty concept. That is, true absolute nothingness denotes nothing, for there is nothing to denote, nor is there any denotation either.

Absolute nothing with something to give it meaning is, instead, an oxymoron. It is not an empty concept, but it is an illogical one.

How so?

To be clear, I am not arguing that its possible no thing exists. The argument only shows why the current impossibility of absolute nothingness does not single-handedly explain why there is something. The reason is that absolute nothingness is only impossible during the existence of something, so the question of why there is something to begin with remains.

That said, the impossibility of absolute nothingness is still helpful. You see, absolute nothingness does not hold candidacy for being reality. As said, it is either self-contradictory (whenever something exists to give it thinghood), or it is not self-contradictory (in the event there is no thing), but thus also actually inexistent (and thus not reality). However, the fact that absolute nothingness is not a candidate for reality does not mean there is A candidate for reality; for why must there be a reality at all? Why cannot there be an inexistent non-reality of nothingness?

So, what I have shown is that the impossibility of absolute nothingness does not entail there must be something, but it removes absolute nothingness from the competition. Thus, to explain why there is something, one must merely explain why something is a candidate. Since absolute nothingness is not a candidate, showing that something is a candidate means, by process of elimination, that something must be reality.

It may seem like I am splitting hairs or being a madman, but I believe this is the only way to logically approach the issue.

The empty set (and thus its interior) is a thing, for it has a definition. It is not absolute nothingness.

But physically, there are fields everywhere inundating empty space. — jgill

That is self-contradictory. The space is not empty if there are fields in it. These kinds of retorts seem to rise from a confusion of exactly how absolute the absolute nothingness is. We are talking "about" the inexistence of anything definable and undefinable; the inexistence of absolutely everything.

No one is arguing for absolute skepticism. — Tom Storm

Is anyone arguing this? — Tom Storm

My response was not argumentative, it was a monologue. I was simply explaining my motivation, I was not explaining why anyone was wrong.

I have no idea what any of this means. Sorry. This may well be on me. — Tom Storm

The passage was so non-specific that there is not much meaning to be had, so it is more on me. I believe the passage is meaningful to people who are thinking about the same kinds of things I am currently, as there's a context in which the non-specificity collapses into something quite concrete. If you are not dabbling too much in these topics, then it is only natural that it didn't ring any bells, so have no worries :)

I struggle with these sports of sentences. What does it mean? — Tom Storm

There's a meta-reason for reality. Okay, as for non-meta-reasons for reality; what options are there? There's reason 1, reason 2, etc., and then there is the option of there being no reason.

Now, this last option is true, and if we left it at that, reality would be a brute fact in every sense (and also paradoxical I believe). However, there's more to it. You see, there is a reason for why this last option is true. A reason for a reason, or the lack thereof, is a meta-reason; so, we now have meta-reason for reality. But what is the reason for this? Well, that would be some self-referential reason. I think one could formulate this ultimate self-referential reason in such a way so as to include the meta-reason, though in order to make the full explanation as clear as possible, I think it is prudent to separate them.

Now, that's all very non-specific and might thus be of very little value to you. However, my more concrete ideas are at this point too undeveloped for it to be productive for me to elaborate.

In general, I don't think humans have the capacity to understand reality beyond certain parameters. — Tom Storm

It could be I agree, depending on the exact meaning of your statement. There are parts of reality that must be understandable in order to allow for any certitude, and I believe (because I am optimistic) that certitude regarding non-trivial matters is attainable. Without this certitude, everything of value is lost to the absurdity of absolute skepticism. How can I know something is good for me if I don't even know I exist? Of course, one could make the conscious choice to not give a damn about the technicalities and roll the boulder anyways, and this might be what I have to resort to if my project fails.

People find this aesthetically unattractive and insist on more pleasing stories. I came to this view as a small child and all that I've seen and read has not led me to an alternative narrative. — Tom Storm

I am of the view that there is no "normal" reason for reality, but there is a reason for why there must be no reason. Thus, with this belief, there is a meta-reason for why reality exists. I do not want to spoil anything more, but this gives you the general picture. Is this contrary to your beliefs, or specification of them?

This is entailed by "nothingness is impossible" (i.e. there cannot be not-something), no? — 180 Proof

This inference is only valid if one assumes there is something to begin with, which makes it a circular argument.

I agree. Get to know the person by minimizing biases as much as possible. But then, how can one combine this with one's knowledge of the statistics regarding the different races?

Here's what I mean: if I met a black person, I would try to get to know them without any assumptions about them. I would succeed quite well in that, as I am not very assumptive. However, it still a fact that there is more crime (per capita) among the black population than the white population. By ignoring this fact, how would one be able to enact accurate social change? One couldn't, and thus one would be worse off in de-actualizing this racially correlated trait.

It is possible to acknowledge statistics without assuming they apply to a single person of the population to which the statistics apply. Complete color blindness would include a complete blindness to the racial statistics, no? How then could one make a good piece of educational entertainment aimed at the black youth, for example, if one is blind to the statistics regarding that audience?

When dealing with the few, statistics are more of an obstruction than a help. When dealing with the many, statistics are helpful. This is getting at the middle way between racial realism and color blindness that I am talking about.

I propose we stop actualizing it. — NOS4A2

Yeah, that's what I am saying too. But the question is, how do we stop actualizing it? As many have pointed out, ignoring something does not make it go away. So, what is the middle way between not feeding into the delusion but also acknowledging the current actualization of the delusion? Exactly what do we need to do to walk that middle way?

I’ve never doubted that people have categorized human beings according to this false taxonomy. — NOS4A2

Sure, but by using this false taxonomy, it becomes less and less false, and must thus be contended with to some degree. That's my point. Regardless of how false it is on its own, we humans actualize it. So, how do we deal with it?

The law is a social construct too. We're still able to determined what is legal and illegal. We're still able to be affected by the law. The law is still, practically speaking, real.

Race is a social construct, I agree. That doesn't change the fact that it is real. It is real because we believe in it. It is real because some people have expectations based to race, and those expectations are illusorily met through confirmation bias and the falsification of memories. But those expectations are also actualized (see the Pygmalion effect); this in-turn causes more people to share those expectations and the correlations between race and other properties are thusly continuously amplified. To ignore the realness of a social construct is not doing any help. But neither is adding onto the realness.

The best middle way is to acknowledge the actualities but also their root, thus realizing it doesn't need to be this way (because race is not intrinsically correlated with anything). Now, how may we walk this middle way? Is saying that one is/ought to be colorblind helpful to this end? I don't know, the above was merely my way of framing the issue.

It is no more of a riddle than anything else is.

Without revealing too much of my own framework, this is my description of logic:

Hilbert said, "Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things." This applies to all of logic, as does its opposite. For logic is also the art of giving different names to the same things, and in a sense, these two actions are the same.

For my definition of logic, you'll have to wait for my magnum opus, if it ever comes.