Bill Snedden

Actually, yes I believe that it really would. Basic logic can be used to demonstrate that nothingness, as a putative state of affairs, is a logical impossibility.

"Nothing" is the negation of everything. As such, it must necessarily preclude even the possibility of "something" (for even the possibility of "something" is "something"). Therefore, if ever "nothing" did exist, "nothing" would still exist.

However, "something" certainly exists now. Thus, there can never have been a time at which "nothing" existed. Something has always existed.

People speak of "something" and "nothing" as though they are ontological opposites. It seems to me, however, that this isn't true. "Nothing" exists only as a concept of the negation of "everything". It can have no separate ontological status.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

seebs

This strikes me as equivocation. When I speak of "nothing", I don't include hypotheticals, probability, or mathematical truth; I merely include objects and space. Those are the "things" under discussion.

tronvillain

I would have to say that just including time and space as things makes the existence of nothing impossible.

Panta Pei

Eternal Flux.

The moment you find yourself in nothing is the moment you won't be there to discern it.

phaedrus

Are time and space objects or are they just human notions?

Can space and matter be viewed as the same material in different energy states?

Bill Snedden

Not at all. Hypotheticals, probabilities, & mathematical truths, if they exist, must exist somewhere. Even if that is not granted, they themselves, if they exist, are something that exists. If something is in existence, then "nothing" simply cannot be.

Consider a sealed clear glass jar without any contents. I apply a vacuum pump and draw out all of the air in the bottle (hypothetically, the jar can withstand the full vacuum without imploding). Now, is there anything inside the jar?

Even though there's nothing material there, the vacuum has dimension. The "nothing" in the jar can only be instantiated because of the "something" (the constraints of the jar) against which it can be differentiated.

"Nothingness" as a putative state of affairs is not just the absence of matter; it is the absence of everything. No god(s), no universe or "proto"-universe, no laws, no abstract objects, no forms (for Platonists), no anything. "Nothingness" is the negation of existence itself. The reification of "nothing" therefore violates the law of non-contradiction.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

[ June 04, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

Skepticwithachainsaw

Well nothingness would have to include a lack of space-time and any other form of dimension as well, the lack of dimensions would mean that their could be no change.

In short nothingness = total stasis.

Hmm, Bill, can you really say that Mathematics have an external existence? I mean do your thoughts have any "real" existence outside of your mind (which maybe is nothing more than the changing reactions of your synapse)?

However I would agree with, one of the things about "Nothingness" is the lack of any physical laws as this would perhaps presuppose some from of structure and how can there be structure to nothing.

For that reason I don't think it could actually exist, maybe it's a concept, like Infinity.

Bill Snedden

Interestingly enough, I've read that most mathematicians who specialize in abstract or pure mathematics seem to be Platonists of some sort or another who believe that mathematics does represent a "higher" truth that is out there to be discovered.

I'm wary of this idea myself. Like you, I believe, I tend to think of mathematics as a language that describes what we perceive to be the structure of the observable universe. Therefore, without human minds, "mathematics" would not exist, although the reality that gives rise to the language certainly would.

My point to seebs was that even if we were to assume that mathematical truths could exist without space or "objects", as he put it, they would still be "something" and therefore their existence would be incompatible with "nothing" as a putative state of affairs.

My point exactly.

Precisely. I think that it exists as a concept only. As the negation of existence itself, it can never be and could never have been, instantiated in reality.

Regards,

Bill Snedden