"Nothing" in the absolute sense (absence of everything) is logically inconsistent and therefore impossible. If there were absolutely nothing then there would still be the fact that there is absolutely nothing, but this fact would be something, a property of reality.

We are able to put arbitrary thoughts, words or sounds together but that doesn't mean that these collections refer to something in reality.

Harry Potter exists in a certain way, for example as a collection of qualia in our consciousness. Whether he also exists as a concrete person in the physical world depends on whether he and his world are consistently defined. But such a world is apparently not identical to ours.

Inconsistently defined things such as triangular circles do not exist because they have no identity (triangular circle is a circle that is not a circle). They are nothing. We can think about them and our thoughts exist as a collection of qualia, but such thoughts refer to nothing.

But how do you explain the fact that we can think about impossibilities? Do these acts of thinking not really exist? — darthbarracuda

An act of thinking exists as a collection of qualia in one's consciousness. But if they refer to impossibilities such as a triangular circle they refer to nothing because impossible things do not exist.

So you can think the statement "The triangle is a circle", or you can speak it or write it down. The collection of qualia, sounds, or ink marks on paper is consistent and exists, but it does not refer to anything.

But why does this reason exist? — darthbarracuda

Because its non-existence would result in logical inconsistency, like a triangle being a circle.

The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logical consistency. What is existence anyway, if not logical consistency?

That doesn't tell you why the thing exists, but rather how anything exists. — John

I think it also tells me why the thing exists: the thing exists because it is identical to itself and different from other things.

How about taking logical consistency as a "brute fact"? That means, something exists iff it is identical to itself and different from others. This "brute fact" then generates the whole reality.

What is the warrant for induction, other than the customary association of effects with causes (and so on)? Those were the questions he was considering. — Wayfarer

But it seems he at least acknowledged there are stable regularities in nature. To me this seems the same as acknowledging there are laws in nature, even though it is unknown whether they will continue to hold in the future.

More a regular conjunction of events than a coincidence. — Wayfarer

But why would a conjunction of events be regular? Did he think there are regularities like the law of gravitation?

How did Hume explain the observed fact that when you drop an apple it always falls down? That it's a coincidence?

States of affairs. (Dynamic) ways the world is. — Terrapin Station

If it is a fact that the world is a certain way, then I would say that it is objectively true that the world is that way. This seems to be the usual concept of objective truth.

They can be translated from one to the other, and with enough imagination, probably to an equal degree. Which means that you have to explain why you posit subject-predicate as the structuration of the world, if it happens that non-finites clauses are just a co-extent with reality as finite ones. As of now the move seems arbitrary. — Akanthinos

As I said, non-finite clauses have a subject-predicate structure too, just not explicit.

If someone believes that there are facts that they can know, such as that one will fall if one jumps out of a window, then it would be very unlikely that they'd not assign "true" to the proposition "One will fall if one jumps out of a window" (assuming no unusual meaning assignments, etc.) — Terrapin Station

But what are facts if not objective truths?

Once saw a dude who claimed he was Jesus and that the bonfire wouldn't burn him. — Akanthinos

But I guess he didn't think that it was a fact and simultaneously that it wasn't true.

How about non-finite clauses? They certainly expresses states-of-affairs, but do not have a subject-predicate structuration. And yes, you can translate one from the other and then backwards again a thousand times, but how do you justify epistemologicaly the claim that reality is also so structured, which is logically incompatible with the claim that non-finite clauses can correspond to states-of-affairs? — Akanthinos

Non-finite clauses have an implied subject-predicate structure too, and they can be reworded to make the structure explicit.

How about every realistic phenomenon involving surrealist art which aren't expressed by the proposition "Surrealist art is exhibited in the local gallery". Do they find no place in your ontology? — Akanthinos

That was just an example of a proposition.

So, before language was evolved, we had no way to correspond to reality? That must've been rough. — Akanthinos

Well, there was non verbal language, like animals have, but that was much more limited.

I don't know anyone who would think that it is a fact that you will fall when you jump out of a window, and at the same time doubt that the proposition "You will fall when you jump out of a window" is true. But that seems to be your view.

So you wouldn't say that propositions necessarily have to do with meanings? — Terrapin Station

They have, but their meanings are in reality, in facts.

What's the subject-predicate structure of instinctual action? Of surrealist art? — Akanthinos

Propositions have a subject-predicate structure, for example "Surrealist art is exhibited in the local gallery." "Surrealist art" is subject and "is exhibited in the local gallery" is predicate.

Could you explain how language is capable of such a trick? — Akanthinos

The trick of corresponding to reality? Apparently, language evolved to do that trick because it was useful to communicate in a way that corresponded to reality.

What changes about the proposition when it is snared by a hunting mind, that it wasn't true before it could be put in words? — Akanthinos

A proposition is true or false regardless of whether it is thought by someone.

Usefulness is irrelevant to reality. The reality is that propositions only obtain when individuals think them. There's absolutely no evidence of them existing otherwise. — Terrapin Station

What I called instantiated propositions is what you called facts. If you jump out of a window you will fall - that is a fact and a true proposition.

On my view, a proposition only obtains when an indiviual thinks that proposition. You might not agree with that, but that's my view. Is that much clear? — Terrapin Station

Ok but I don't see how subjective truth is useful. I am interested in reality, not in beliefs.

I'm not saying that the fact of whether there is a window or whether you will fall if you jump out of a window is subjective. — Terrapin Station

But if it is a fact that there is a window then the proposition "There is a window" is true. And if it is a fact that there is no window then the proposition "There is a window" is false.

What I'm asking you is how that corresondence relation works, in mechanical/physical terms.

You can't talk about people pointing at things, saying things, doing things, etc.--that's not mind-independent. You're claiming that once the reference is set, it's mind-independent. — Terrapin Station

I said what is mind-dependent and what is mind-independent about statements. I don't know how to put it more clearly.

I don't at all agree with the distinction you're making. — Terrapin Station

I don't agree with your view that it is a matter of subjective judgment whether there is a window in a wall or whether you will fall if you jump out of a window.

So again, I'll ask you how, in that situation, the statement refers mind-independently. What are the mechanics of that? Just how does it work? — Terrapin Station

It's just the reference/correspondence relation between the statement and reality. If you point to a dog and say "This is a window", you refer to a dog with a word that refers to something else and therefore your statement doesn't correspond to reality and is false.

I didn't say it wasn't a physical world. I said the relationship between this world and another one is neither temporal nor spatial. — noAxioms

I would say that any things that are differentiated from each other make up a "space" of some kind, in which they are differentiated from each other. So you could have a one-dimensional space of natural numbers, or a two-dimensional space of complex numbers, or a space where on one axis is the price of a product and on another axis is the demanded quantity of the product (the demand curve can be said to exist in such a space). Or if you don't want to use the word "space" in such a general sense, just use the word "collection", "set" or a "multiset". Multisets are sets that treat identical copies of their members as different objects.

First, you need to differentiate between proposition and statement. Proposition is a feature of reality, completely mind-independent. Its truth in a world is mind-independent too - it is identical to the instantiation of the proposition in that world.

Second, a statement requires a mind to assign referents to words. But once those referents are assigned, the truth of a statement, based on the assigned referents, is mind-independent, depending on whether the statement corresponds to reality, that is, whether it corresponds to the instantiated proposition.

How would they mind-independently refer to something? Take the sound or ink marks "window." It mind-independently refers to something by ______? — Terrapin Station

I didn't say they refer mind-independently. It takes a mind to assign referents to words.

The subject-predicate structure is the structure of the window existing in the wall. It is a feature of reality. It is mind-independent. The sounds or marks on paper can correspond to this feature if we assign to those sounds or marks what they refer to in reality.

So maybe our answer lies in here somewhere. The sides of the square are identical, and thus are one side, but it exists four times as much as center point of the thing. — noAxioms

Or we can say that one abstract line is instantiated in four particular lines. The abstract line and the four particular lines are five different things.

What I'm asking you is how it works--basically in "mechanical" terms--that those words refer to something. You're claiming that they refer to something mind-indepedently. Well, how does that work exactly? — Terrapin Station

Words are just our names for things and relations in reality. For example, people in English speaking countries agreed to use the word "window" as a name for the openings in the walls of houses that serve to let in light and air. Words are useful in communication. If you want to tell someone about a window you just utter a simple sound instead of having to draw a window or show them a physical one.

The choice and use of a word is mind-dependent but the thing in reality that the word refers to is generally not. Whether there is a thing called "window" in a particular wall of a house is true or untrue regardless of how we call it and even regardless of whether anyone makes a statement about it. The truth is completely mind-independent. The proposition "There is a window in the wall" is a special kind of complex property, with a subject-predicate structure, and when such a property is instantiated in a world, it is true in that world.

And if someone makes the statement "There is a window in the wall" then of course it requires a mind to make a statement but whether the statement is true depends on whether there is a window in the wall in reality, not on someone's judgment.

Could you describe how you believe that works?--That is, describe the mechanics of it in some detail? — Terrapin Station

"If you jump out of window you will fall."

It is well known what the words in this statement refer to. Do you think that the truth of this statement depends on someone's judgment? That the statement may not be true and so you will not fall if you jump out of window? (of course we assume that usual conditions hold, such as the presence of gravity, the position of the window above the ground, you not having wings etc., which I am not going to enumerate)

Worlds have positions?? Can I say which is left of the other? Can these four identical worlds be put in some kind of order?
You're assigning nonexistent differences to the same thing and contradicting your own definitions now. — noAxioms

A space can consist of identical points, that is, points that are the same except for their position in the space they make up. Now imagine that the points are worlds - again, identical except for their position in the space they make up.

It's fine to say "P is true if P corresponds with reality," but then we need to ask, "Okay, how, exactly, does that obtain? How, exactly, does a statement correspond with reality." And the answer to that is that a person makes a judgment about it. — Terrapin Station

Words have their referents in reality. Once it is chosen which words refer to what in reality, it is an objective fact whether a statement made of those words corresponds to reality (accurately describes reality), not a matter of subjective judgment. If you jump out of window you will fall, no matter what anyone's judgment may be.

But a statement is true if it corresponds to reality. It is irrelevant whether anyone subjectively judges it as true.

Do you think there is no objective truth? No external reality?

It can't mean that there are 4 of one world and 1 of the other, since four of them would be identical, and thus violate the law of identity. — noAxioms

You can have copies of a world that are the same as that world. Their only difference would be their different position (place) in reality.

No. Propositions are the (meanings of) the statements. — Terrapin Station

Propositions are the meanings of statements, that is, the referents of statements in reality.

Take the proposition "There is no unicorn on Main Street". The proposition is true in our world, so it is a property (characteristic, feature) of our world. On the other hand, the proposition "There is a unicorn on Main Street" is false in our world, so it is not a property of our world. Maybe it is a property of some other world.

The proposition "A circle is not a square" is a tautology because it is true in every possible world, so it is a property of every possible world. On the other hand, its negation is false in every possible world, so it is not a property of any world.

I don't agree that "reality itself" issues propositions. It's something that individual persons do. — Terrapin Station

Propositions are a kind of properties of reality. People's statements refer to these properties.

Joe's not saying anything about a unicorn not existing on Main Street, is he? So where is a proposition that a unicorn doesn't exist on Main Street coming from? — Terrapin Station

It is coming from the same source as the proposition that a circle is not a square: from reality. Every thing exists in the sense in which it is defined (constituted, placed) in reality. Unicorns don't exist on Main Street; it's part of their definition.

But it illustrates a point: Objectively, there seem to be no hard rules to be violated. I have a hard time justifying a four-sided triangle, but it presumes that three is not identical to four. Pretty obvious, but is that true given no rules at all? — noAxioms

"contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

So if in one sense you mean wheels only as those on which the car currently travels and in another sense also as a spare wheel, your statement about the wheels is consistent. A contradiction arises only when something is asserted and denied in the same sense.

In arithmetic, four is not identical to three. It is the successor of three. So to claim that four is identical to three in the arithmetical sense is a contradiction.

So if all these outcomes exist, why do empirical measurements find more occurrences of the probable ones than the improbable ones? — noAxioms

The only reason I can think of is that the more probable outcomes occur in more worlds than the less probable outcomes. But I heard that this is still an unsolved problem in MWI because it is not clear how to calculate frequentist probabilities when there are infinitely many worlds. Maybe the number of worlds that split at a measurement cannot be infinite. Maybe a unified theory of QM and gravity will give the answer? (just my lay speculation)

The other solution is that some realities are more probable than others, and in the case of your proposed view, it means some things are more logically consistent than other things. This world exists more than the possible but more improbable ones. — noAxioms

I don't know what it would mean that some things are more logically consistent than others.

Okay, so sticking with the unicorn example, what's the proposition that's both being asserted and denied unequivocally? He's not denying "There is a unicorn on Main Street." So what proposition is both he asserting and denying? — Terrapin Station

It is contained in the definition of a unicorn that it doesn't exist on Main Street (at least in our world), just as it is contained in the definition of a circle that it is not a square. So the idea that a unicorn exists on Main Street says that something that doesn't exist on Main Street exists on Main Street.

You're not getting the square circle thing right, first off. The issue there isn't the shapes. It's the idea of constructing a square equal in area to a given circle. — Terrapin Station

I said nothing about the area of a circle or a square. I said a circle is a square, which is a clearly inconsistent statement. The statement "There is a unicorn on Main Street" is inconsistent too, even though it may not be obvious.

Anyway, note that I'm not claiming that someone can not have an inconsistent belief. So jumping to other examples isn't very useful. — Terrapin Station

The example about the circle is similar to the example about the unicorn, only in the unicorn example the inconsistency may not be obvious. So I wanted to show the parallels. Joe's idea is inconsistent no matter whether he believes it. If he believes it then his belief is inconsistent too.