Nothingness

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;166905 wrote:

1. if x = true then x = false

So if (1) is not a contradiction then what is it? I must admit I haven't seen something like that before so I'm not sure what to call it but that's the essence of "if nothing exists then something exists".

P implies not-~P implies , ~P. It is a contingent truth that P implies ~P implies ~P. As I advised U. test it on the truth table. It is also the form of the reductio ad absurdum argument. Nothing mysterious about it, although it may look mysterious. (The advantages of formal logic. Mystery disappears when you put it on a truth table).

@Fil Albuquerque,

That which contains everything, and holds everything together, in the holding process, must hold itself !

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;166908 wrote:

P implies not-~P implies , ~P. It is a contingent truth that P implies ~P implies ~P. As I advised U. test it on the truth table. It is also the form of the reductio ad absurdum argument. Nothing mysterious about it, although it may look mysterious. (The advantages of formal logic. Mystery disappears when you put it on a truth table).

You're still talking about P and ~P but that's a false characterization of the claim "if nothing exists then something exists". I provided one which you ignored.

1. if X is true then X is false

Please, answer the following question. If (1) isn't a contradiction, what is it? Whatever it is, it's false.

@Fil Albuquerque,

A set of all sets cannot be referred other then by its process...no summary !

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;166913 wrote:

1. if X is true then X is false

Please, answer the following question. If (1) isn't a contradiction, what is it? Whatever it is, it's false.

If X is true and X is false, then If X is true, then X is false, is false. It is a contingently false statement. What else would you like to know about it? The truth table will reveal all. (True implies false is, false). The proposition, if X is a cat, then X is not a cat, is false. On the other hand, the proposition if X is not a cat, the X is a cat, is true. By the vagaries of material implication. (If you find this all hard to swallow ask Videcorspoon, or Emil. They know this stuff too).

@Fil Albuquerque,

Hi All,

The set is something, isn,t it?
"IF" remains hypothetical, to me. (If pigs could fly)! But they can't. X doesn't = anything, if "Nothing" exists - There is no "X" and nobody in existence to write "X"

Would any of you care to shout out the window "NOTHING EXISTS"?
You'd get some funny looks, I believe.

Thank you, and have a lovely afternoon.

Mark...

@mark noble,

mark noble;166929 wrote:

Hi All,

The set is something, isn,t it?
"IF" remains hypothetical, to me. (If pigs could fly)! But they can't. X doesn't = anything, if "Nothing" exists - There is no "X" and nobody in existence to write "X"

Would any of you care to shout out the window "NOTHING EXISTS"?
You'd get some funny looks, I believe.

Thank you, and have a lovely afternoon.

Mark...

If I shouted out the window that the world is round I would get funny looks too. It is the shouting our of the window, not what you shout, that would draw the funny looks.

What it means to say that "if" is hypothetical, I haven't a clue. "If" is just word.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;166932 wrote:

If I shouted out the window that the world is round I would get funny looks too. It is the shouting our of the window, not what you shout, that would draw the funny looks.

What it means to say that "if" is hypothetical, I haven't a clue. "If" is just word.

Hi Ken,

Not in my street, People always shout out their windows here.

If (hypothetical) you would rather attend the stage of the UN and, via microphone, announce to the global populace "Nothing Exists"!
I, for one, would like to see and hear that announcement.

Get back to the argument, and debate it philosophically, so I can prove you wrong, which I don't want to do, because I am not a competitive person.
The one about "nothing existing", that is.

Thank you Ken, and venture magnificently, sir.

Mark...

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;166918 wrote:

The proposition, if X is a cat, then X is not a cat, is false.

Likewise, the proposition "if nothing exists then something exists" is false.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;166949 wrote:

Likewise, the proposition "if nothing exists then something exists" is false.

Not if "nothing" is the name of something. Then it is true.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;166954 wrote:

Not if "nothing" is the name of something.

But it's not. Nothing is not a something. When I say "nothing exists" I'm not saying "there is nothing and it exists". I'm not predicating existence to a thing called "nothing".

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;166957 wrote:

But it's not. Nothing is not a something. When I say "nothing exists" I'm not saying "there is nothing and it exists". I'm not predicating existence to a thing called "nothing".

What is the argument for that?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;166959 wrote:

What is the argument for that?

How do I provide an argument for something that I do? I can just say that I do it and you can watch me do it. That's all.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;166960 wrote:

How do I provide an argument for something that I do? I can just say that I do it and you can watch me do it. That's all.

You stated that the word, "nothing" does not refer to something. So I asked you to provide an argument for that. I agree with you that "nothing: is not a referring term. It is a logical particle very much like the term, "not". To say that nothing is in the drawer is equivalent to saying that there is not anything in the drawer. Not, that there is something in the drawer. To ask the cliche'd question, why is there something rather than nothing, is to suppose that "nothing" is a referring term.

@andyhudd,

andyhudd;26075 wrote:

On the topic of nothingness, a concept so great, that it seems almost impossible for us to ever really understand, I've come up with a theory/quote, that I thought I'd share.

"To truly understand nothingness, is to understand everything."

What do you think?

First off what is nothingness? It's impossible to understand everything, even bible scholars disagree about the same tiny text, how to interpet it, how to convey it.

It would be impossible for any mortal to know everything in a lifetime, such person would do nothing but study from dusk till dawn. Maybe when we genemanipulate ourselves to become super savants such may be possible, even then why should that help on comprehension of nothingness, it's a spekulative term.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;167650 wrote:

First off what is nothingness? .

It is certainly nothing to worry about. After all, if you do worry about it you will be worried about nothing.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;167654 wrote:

It is certainly nothing to worry about.

:lol:nice 1 mr KA.

@Khethil,

Hi All,

You may as well abandon the concept of nothingness, because it can't ever have existed and never can exist.

"Something cannot arise out of nothing" and "Nothing cannot arise out of something" End of...

Thank you all, and journey magnificently.

Mark...

@mark noble,

It is incorrect to refer to "nothing" in the positive like so: "Nothing has no characteristic". It is more correct to describe this premise in the negative like so: "Nothing doesn't have a characteristic." Nothing can't "has" (have) anything.

If nothing doesn't have a characteristic, then nothing has the characteristic of not having a characteristic.
Nothing doesn't have a characteristic.
Therefore, nothing doesn't have the characteristic of not having a characteristic.
:brickwall:

This demonstrates a cyclical problem for describing nothing. However, I believe it also demonstrates why there is existence at all. In a semantic sense, but not a physical sense, nothing "gives rise" to everything in this manner. Because nothing cannot have a characteristic, something simply has to be that has a characteristic (which is what we call "something"). It is this simultaneous and symbiotic relationship between the nature of having and not having characteristics that gives rise to existence itself.

@andyhudd,

andyhudd;26075 wrote:

On the topic of nothingness, a concept so great, that it seems almost impossible for us to ever really understand, I've come up with a theory/quote, that I thought I'd share.

"To truly understand nothingness, is to understand everything."

What do you think?

Nothingness cannot be understood if you mean it to be devoid of space and time, as they are a priori intuitions; it would make no sense for us. That there is no thing there we can very well understand if we remove all the sensations (color, hardness, softness, smell, sight) and intelligible (extension, duration, solidity, etc.) qualities from a representation; but we are still left with time and space, that is, with the representation gone we are still left with pure space and time. So how can we understand nothingness by understanding everything (the world)? Thats my take on it (along with Kant and Schopenhauer).

Once we understand the concept of "everything", we can understand the concept of "nothingness"? Would nothingness be included in everything? Doesnt that just lead to contradictions?

Do you mean knowledge of everything? So by extension we would have knowledge of nothingness? I think you need to define your terms good sir. Or you can just ignore me.

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