/lit/ - Literature

>>5872243
A simple question for you. How is that question relevant to anything?

>>5872243
Because if there was nothing, there would be nobody to question it, so it wouldn't matter anyways.

The only reason you're asking this is because there is something. That is the reason.

>>5872243
Is there is a physical world which is more or less consistent, then there has to be a measurable logic of the world. It could very well be that what we measure and correlate is wrong, but it hasn't been wrong yet.
PS no scientist who understands his discipline will believe that the things we know can't change.

You wont get a scientific answer. It's not a scientific question. It's hardly even a philosophical question. It is rather an expression of one's wonder at the world. It is a call to action, a call to thinking.

>>5872243
why is there nickelback rather than nothing?

God.

>tautological
How is it tautological? Why do you use terms you don't know the meaning of?

>>5872243
What? It was either one or the other. It was as it is, and here we are.

Well, why would there be nothing instead of something? I always seem to hear philosophers or armchair philosophers use "nothing" as the default state of everything, and that there being something is remarkable. I don't think that's true. If you have nothing and there's no laws of physics, then there's no reason why things wouldn't pop into existence, there's no conservation of energy to break. And since time doesn't exist if you have nothing, then that "something" will pop into existence instantly.

>>5872604
>If you have nothing [...] there's no reason why things wouldn't pop into existence
And then there are dunces that are comfortable believing in this nonsense.

My fucking god.

>>5872616

I don't hear an argument or refutation, just baseless assertions. Don't bother speaking to me unless you have something of value to say.

If there was nothing, there would be nothing to stop something from existing.

>>5872616
Well, can your fucking god please elaborate why it is nonsense?

>inb4 merely an act yadda yadda

>>5872243
This is still an open question, there is much conjecture, however, science will eventually solve it.

There is not something rather than nothing, there is both. Nothing, that is to say, Chaos, precedes something but only figuratively, since there is no time in Chaos (yet there is), hence no cause-effect. Chaos is all things at once, and therefore not anything, but out of it comes all things. Sort of like how various colors come out of colorless light.

>Nothing about modern physics explains why we have these laws rather than some totally different laws

What the hell are you even asking? Scientists are trying to come up with the best possible explanations to the world as it presents itself to us. Why would they waste 5 seconds worrying about the laws of some world that doesn't exist?

>As for the philosophers, the best that they can come up with is the anthropic principle

Why are you assuming everybody has the exact same view?

>the notion that our particular universe appears the way it does by virtue of our presence as observers within it — a suggestion that has an uncomfortably tautological ring to it.

Something is tautological or not. There's not some middle ground. And it's actually fantastic for a philosophical argument to be tautological. It means no one can disprove it.

>>5872622
>>5872616
Different anon.
Without the laws of physics, how could something come into existence?

>>5872286
>>5872580
these are both right
I'm a professional thinker

>>5872622
You have no persuasive arguments to begin with. The one that's putting forth baseless assertions here is you and only you.

>And since time doesn't exist if you have nothing, then that "something" will pop into existence instantly.
For the billionth of time: Nothing comes out of nothing; that is, unless you take "nothing" to be "something". If so, you must define "nothing" more precisely.

>mfw brainwashed adherents of ex nihilo are actually swallowing this irrational and make-believe contemporary horseshit

Is it difficult because you can't get to a definitive answer? How would you recognize a definitive answer that suffices it? Just dropping this thought.

I don't think it is really a matter of either/or, something or nothing. Something is. Nothingness is not. Without one you don't get the other. When you stretch them to the edges of themselves, they turn one into the other. Careful here not to confuse nothing with thing. It's a no-thing, it has no qualities, no characteristics other than not being. It isn't an it.

>Vishnu sleeps, partly floating and partly submerged in the cosmic ocean. There is no one to watch, no knowledge of him except within himself.

How easy human relations are, when we have one and the other, a thing and another to compare. And how hard it is to us to embrace it all and eventually say "This is all. Nothing else."

What is weirder? Something that comes from itself and nothing else, endlessly being and transforming itself, never to meet otherness outside of itself, and effectively to be without having an outside. Or, something that comes from nothing, that sprouts from what isn't. Beyond that, what would be the difference between the two?

Why is there something rather than nothing? But we have lots of nothings. It's all around us. And do we really have something here where we think we have? Look closely and you'll find it's full of nothing (or empty of itself). Look closely into nothing and you are bound to find something. An infinite of nothingness is but a glimpse. A particle of something contains all that will ever be. Something can't be, without nothing around it to separate it, in the same way you don't have odd numbers if you skip through the even ones.

>>5872640
We can't say exactly how because we only understand the mechanics of the laws of physics, in fact we are still understanding that. It's virtually impossible to dissect antephysical law, and in fact there probably isn't any such law in Chaos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLrMVous0Ac

>>5872640

There is no "how". The reason things don't pop into existence now is because of conservation of energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, a pink elephant spawning in your room is creating more energy. If there's no laws of physics, there's no reason why a pink elephant (or a universe with laws of physics) couldn't just pop into existence.

>>5872650
How is it contemporary? I get my idea of it from Hellenismos, I'm the one who has been talking about Chaos. Everything together cancels itself out, you have proportionate force in all directions, etc. Nothing, Chaos.

>>5872650

>nothing comes out of nothing

....Because of the conservation of energy. If that didn't exist, which it wouldn't if there truly was nothing, then there's no reason something could come out of nothing.

>>5872680
And there is no reason at all for energy to exist or that there be an absence of something (nothing), I am not sure why you're searching for one. It is, or it is not.

>>5872688

There doesn't have to be a reason. There's no rules in a state of nothingness.

>>5872688
>there is no reason
Because it comes from nothing.

Conservation of energy is something we have observed in things, not in no-things. This mixture of all things we call universe works in that way, but the original question is how this comes from what isn't. The basic difficulty here is that we are trying to apply this conservation of energy into it or trying to find "reasons" and causes where there is no possibility for cause.

In mathematics, whatever algebric shit you are dealing with, you have to set if it is in the reals, the naturals, greater than this, smaller than that, etc. In philosophy is just like it. What answer would suffice the question "why is there something rather than nothing?", not the correct answer, just in what realm would that answer be?

If you are looking for a reason, you are saying a possible answer must contain a reason for nothing to turn to something and all other answers are unnacceptable. This leads to null answers. If you think there must be some quality to nothing that makes it into something, you are not talking about nothing, so you won't find an answer there either. Perhaps the realm of the possible answers is that is wrong.

What stops nothing from becoming something? Why wouldn't it? Either there is always something everywhere and everytime, or at some times there is nothing. How can something become nothing? This is not like an icecube turning into an unicorn (a thing into the other and you see no relation or reason for they to interchange). This is no-thing and some-thing.

>>5872680
>>5872688
All I hear is:
>there is no reason
>there is no reason
>there is no reason

Are you epistemically qualified to be postulating this? No one on Earth would think this, unless, by accident, they happened to share your unjustifiable assumption.

In reality, the reality is as such: We cannot, and we will, presumably, never know what went on, and what goes on, behind the scenes. So, "Why is there something rather than nothing" is by far the most penetrating question of all philosophical questions, but that almost certainly will never be answered.

Your attempt of silencing anyone that raises the question couldn't be more perplexing. To quote Schopenhauer: "The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him."

>>5872696
So there doesn't have to be a reason, but there has to be energy?

>>5872722
Nothing can't become. It's nothing.
ITT: people don't realize that nothing in philosophy means absolutely nothing at all, i.e., no energy, mass, matter, laws, etc. Nothing means nothing at all.

>>5872738
Sure. And no cause as well. No motivation, no intention, no need.

My point is that when you say "nothing can't become" you are actually saying "things can't come without a cause" and I think this is fallacious.

It's nothing, nothing at all, without any sugar coating: nothing at all.
Something comes from it.

"Nothing" is just a convenient abstraction; there is no, and there never was, an actual nothing.

Universe is infinite and there is, ahem, nothing you can do about it.

>>5872744
How does something come from it?
If your answer doesn't involve a deity you're wrong.
Man is the synthesis of being and nothing.
Why should things happen without a cause?

>>5872744
>It's nothing, nothing at all, without any sugar coating: nothing at all.
>Something comes from it.
But that's just irrational. Why believe in this?

>>5872738

>ITT: people don't realize that nothing in philosophy means absolutely nothing at all, i.e., no energy, mass, matter, laws, etc. Nothing means nothing at all.

Except "nothing" isn't a technical term and it used to mean different things in different contexts.

>>5872752
Deities are often there to translate this notion, no wonder there is so much contradiction to those who are foreign to them.

But when you say it like this, it's as if I can't have just nothing and I must create a deity to put it there to explain it. That's no different from saying there is something. In the same way, to say "what causes nothing to become something?" follows the same logic. A very powerful impulse to fill it in. But then, it won't be nothing.

It's not that things "should" happen without a cause. It's that they do. There is no should and I believe what is difficult for us to understand is this. In order for something to be, there must be nothing, in the same way that if you can't differentiate between one thing and the other it's as if neither of them existed. Causes and consequences are something. There must be no-causes as well.

>>5872755
It's not irrational, how is it irrational? It goes against the "ex nihilo nihil fit", that's all. Why believe that nothing comes from nothing? We are not talking about something imaginary, it is so in real life. This is something I can see, nothing becoming something. If you keep justifying things for their causes, and "laws" and explanations and so on, you may find yourself addicted to it, believing that's the only way for things to be. I don't think so. Even to say "how can there be no causes?" is a search for a cause of it. This apparent contradiction, actually a paradox, is what I think is at the edge of our understanding. Why there must be a cause? What caused the cause? Nothing, that's absolutely nothing.

>>5872778
>"nothing" isn't a technical term
You sure, bro? I've seen it used as one in pretty much every philosophical work I've read where it's brought up. Hegel wrote about it in his Logic, and the pre-Socratics had a lot to say about it. In a philosophical context, it almost always means absolutely nothing, and I don't know how it could mean something else in other contexts.

>>5872780
>In order for something to be, there must be nothing, in the same way that if you can't differentiate between one thing and the other it's as if neither of them existed.
I don't get your point. Something has to come from nothing, but nothing can't give rise to anything, therefore something came from nothing? If you can't differentiate between a gun and a bullet, the gun can still be fired at your skull and kill you. It isn't as if neither existed if they do that.
>There must be no-causes as well
I genuinely don't know what you mean by this.
>This is something I can see, nothing becoming something.
Where do you see that? I'm sure the scientific community would like to get in on this.

>>5872780
>it is so in real life. This is something I can see, nothing becoming something

>It is so in real life, therefore it was so when the Universe came into existence.

>>5872791
>Something has to come from nothing,
It doesn't "have to", it simply does. There is nothing prescriptive about it.
>but nothing can't give rise to anything,
Why not? This is the main point. Where did you get this assumption? You must have seen something giving rise to something, again and again. But why do you assume that from nothing comes nothing?

> If you can't differentiate between a gun and a bullet, the gun can still be fired at your skull and kill you. It isn't as if neither existed if they do that.
Not the point. If you asked that person if it was the gun or the bullet that hit him, he wouldn't understand your question. If my text was black on black background, you wouldn't read it. Same with white on white, blue on blue. If there is no difference, you cannot say anything about it. If this nothing works in the same ways as this something (with cause and effect, qualities, deities, "laws" or whatever), it is not nothing. And in this scenario, this something is not something either. You can't call it "gun firing bullet", just that this whatever whole thing killed that person.

>Where do you see that?
Nothing and then everything. At first I was not and now I'm here. Wasn't it the same with you? Do you see something coming from something, coming from something endlessly? So there is no nothing, there is always something? Again, in this scenario, neither words (something and nothing) mean anything.

>>5872816
>Why not?
Because nothing means nothing at all. How can nothing give rise to something? Why don't you believe in causality?
>You must have seen something giving rise to something, again and again. But why do you assume that from nothing comes nothing?
Because nothing can't do anything because it's nothing. There is literally no way for it to 'do' something, it's a state of absolute nullity.
>If you asked that person if it was the gun or the bullet that hit him, he wouldn't understand your question
Why not? Aside from the fact that he's dead. Most people can distinguish between a bullet and a gun.
>If there is no difference, you cannot say anything about it.
But you just said 'blue on blue,' so clearly it can be spoken of.
>You can't call it "gun firing bullet", just that this whatever whole thing killed that person.
Why can't you call it 'gun and bullet?'
>At first I was not and now I'm here. Wasn't it the same with you?
Yes, by the grace of God you and I and everything came into existence.

>>5872807
The universe is coming to existence and falling apart right now, just like your birth and death are not moments in time, but life itself. To think of the universe in this linear fashion, like a history line from big bang to now and then to the end of it all is very silly to me. Time stretches itself and compresses itself, space defines matters just like the opposite is also true. The universe didn't "came into existence", you can see the original nothingness right here. If you look at far radiation, what do you get? Instead of bright stars and black space, you see a blurry grey mess. The blackness of the space is the nothingness of the star. The white background is the nothingness that allows my something-black-text to exist. A kilometer is a close walk if you have a kilometer of a leg. These things depend on each other to gain meaning. If there is something, if you can call it something, then there is nothing and this nothing is nothing at all, so to try and fit in, fill it in with some vision of something is illogical.

>>5872816
Not him,

>why do you assume that from nothing comes nothing?
Because it conceptually follows from it. There's literally no need for any empirical investigation to clarify that.

>If there is no difference, you cannot say anything about it.
Yet, ironically, you say a whole lot about it

>>5872828
Birth and death happen in time, though.

>>5872243

> a suggestion that has an uncomfortably tautological ring to it.

It doesn't have an "uncomfortably tautological ring to it" you fucking fruitcake it's objectively, smack-you-in-the-face tautological.

>>5872823
>How can nothing give rise to something? Why don't you believe in causality?
I believe in causality. But there must be something to cause to the other thing. If there is nothing, there is no causality and no reason for me to expect it from it. While you don't expect things to come from nothing, I don't expect nothing to need or be anything while it gives birth to something.

>There is literally no way for it to 'do' something
Nothing doesn't "do" anything. Something does something. My point is that this something can only be something if there is nothing. Nothing creates something because nothing cannot be nothing without something. Both are there and they are different from each other. At the same time, they are somewhat interchangeable.

>Most people can distinguish between a bullet and a gun.
>But you just said 'blue on blue,' so clearly it can be spoken of.
>Why can't you call it 'gun and bullet?'
Now you are just forcing yourself not to understand me... If I write blue on blue, you won't read what I said. If a person can't distinguish between bullet and gun, like the premise we started, that person just can't. You don't say an animal is "half eagle and half eagle", you just say eagle, because there is no difference between its parts, they are all eagle parts. Even if "half eagle and half eagle" is a correct description of an eagle. If I say there is bup and there is bop and there is absoutely no difference between them at all, then bup is bop.

>>5872852
Why do you expect nothing to give birth to something?
>My point is that this something can only be something if there is nothing.
But absolute nothingness is absolute nothingness. Before something comes about, nothing is nothing, correct?
>If I write blue on blue, you won't read what I said. If a person can't distinguish between bullet and gun, like the premise we started, that person just can't
I disagree with your premise because it's based on faulty assumptions. Two halves of an eagle make a whole eagle, but it still makes sense to speak of half an eagle.

>>5872848
No, no it doesn't. That's a way to view it, nothing else. Merely conventional. In certain societies you count your years from conception, in some, you are reborn as an adult and must accept the death of childhood. Your memories are always dying and being rewritten, your death begins the moment you are born and follows it later after you ceased breathing all the way to the vanishing of your memory in the eyes of others. When the body of a king dies and his son takes his place with the same name, the person has died, but the king remains the same. This is merely a matter of how you define and identify things. If you choose to do it clearly and estabilsh this point, then the other, then so be it, but that's not the whole truth. We are used to seeing birth and death as points in time, because, today, we treasure individuality above many other things and we like things to be clearly defined. Does a book starts being written with the first word or with the first idea? How to even conceive this? Go debate on abortion on what point in time life starts. It's all conventional.

>>5872867
>When the body of a king dies and his son takes his place with the same name, the person has died, but the king remains the same.
No, the identity of the particular king changes-because the king died, and this happened in what most, if not all, philosophers would agree is time. That is to say, death and birth can be perceived within the framework of time, whatever that framework may be.
>Merely conventional.
So what?
>In certain societies you count your years from conception, in some, you are reborn as an adult and must accept the death of childhood.
This all implies the passage of time and the happening of these events in time.

>>5872830
>Because it conceptually follows from it.
*snif* Pure ideology and so on, *snif*.

To me, something comes from nothing, obviously, and there is no need for any empirical investigation to clarify it. It conceptually follows it. Nothing > then something.

>Yet, ironically, you say a whole lot about it
No, I haven't. I said a whole lot about not being able to say things about it.

Let's analyze this text over here:


^ That's it. What can we say about it?

>>5872865
>But absolute nothingness is absolute nothingness. Before something comes about, nothing is nothing, correct?
Nothing isn't. That's why we can't put it in terms of one before the other in strictly linear fashion. An infinite time of nothingness is no different from a second. So we can't imagine pure black for "a long time" and then bang and things started existing. The whole thing started at this bang, as if the whole void existed in that very moment. There is always something just like there is always nothing.

>>5872873
Yeah, alright. I see your point and it does occur in time. But not strictly into it. In the sense that birth and death exist simultaneously and in relation to each other.

Also, please watch this video >>5872656 , it seems to be arguing for the same thing as me, though much better.

>>5872243
>Why am I a huge faggot instead of not a faggot, or not anything at all?

Good question, OP.

>>5872722

baby philosopher that can't get into no-thing

the nothing itself nothings you fucker

Many of you seem to be treating "nothing" as if it's a conceivable term - but I don't believe it is. I think it's a conceptual illusion, making you believe that you are thinking of what can't be thought of.

We can conceive of negation ("not"), and we can very vaguely conceive of existence ("being"), but when we try to combine these concepts in a coherent way, I believe we attempt the impossible - like trying to combine the concepts "square" and "circle" into a coherent whole.

After all, if you claim that "nothing," "non-being," is an intelligible term, then tell me: what are you thinking of when you think of "nothing?"
A pure, black void? That would involve the concepts of spatial extension and blackness, each of which is the concept of something. The only way to truly think of "nothing" is to be unconscious - that is, not thinking.

You ask why there is something rather than nothing - and I ask why we should agree that "nothing" is a legitimate alternative.

>>5874419

You agree that "the end" and "the start" are illusionary, always has been existing and always will "be"?

>>5874419
>Can't conceive of it
>Clearly must not be possible

What a short-sighted notion.

>>5874430

I find that too vaguely stated for me to agree to it. But I do believe that many things are distinguished from one another by a gradual scale rather than sharp, clear divisions. Like the problem of where scientific questions end and philosophical questions begin - Quine said he saw it as a matter of scale rather than a clear-cut separation (if I remember him correctly). Especially for complex processes over time, it can be difficult if not impossible to isolate a single moment in which they began.

Why do I have sex any night I want (something) and the rest of you guys jack off into a towel (nothing)? It is because Supreme Beings like me create reality through dream images that cannot be explained by words or concepts. If you climb up casual ladder, I am sitting at the top of it, smiling in the moonlight, eating a bowl of cantaloupe. I am God. I am the Holy Ghost. I am here because I wanted to be here. If I want there to be nothingness, there will be nothingness. I have always been. My true essence is not only outside of space and time, but in dimensions unfathomable to your reason, and your intuition. I created reality for myself and you see the mirage of my experience.

>>5874468

>What a short-sighted notion.

Don't be presumptuous, as if I don't have good reasons for dismissing the inconceivable.

If it's inconceivable, it's impossible to distinguish from an impossibility, from a delusion.

Would you say that, given standard mathematical definitions, 2 + 2 can equal 5? It's inconceivable that such a sum could follow - but it's "short-sighted" to say that such a sum is impossible?

>>5874472

even ironic sophistry has a stank of lameness about it

and you will never be able to play this game better than stan so i don't know why you'd settle for taking up a game that you'll always be second best in on this board lol

>>5874486
I do not expect my genius to be recognized in my lifetime. Future browsers of the /lit/ archive will recognize my greatness and build monuments in my honor. People will look for my face in the stars and name constellations after me. And you? You will be forgotten.

>>5874482
False equivalence. I'm saying that something being inconceivable does not mean it is not possible. Something's inconceivability is not a good argument against its existence. A rock cannot conceive anything at all, so therefore nothing can exist. A tribal person cannot conceive of human flight, so that must not exist.

A concept does not need to be graspable to be extant, is the thing I'm attacking. Nothingness =/= Bad Math.

Who's to say you can even conceive anything properly. Mathematical certainty was questioned hundreds of years ago by Descartes if you want to go there. To throw away nothingness as a concept is incredibly juvenile and presumptuous. Existential quandaries are not arbitrated by human conception.

>>5874472
>>5874493
Genius? Lmao, you're nothing compared to the likes of Deep&Edgy, if anything, you give off the impression of an average anon, overdosed with pretentiousness

>>5874493
Like, seriously, you write uninteresting, trivial shit all the time, there's not even a glimpse of genius/greatness in your posts, just my honest opinion

>>5874566
You're fat.

>>5874548
You're gay.

>>5874573
Thanks for making me easy to filter you by having a trip.

>>5874573
And you, sir, are a retard

>>5872243
> Nothing about modern physics explains why we have these laws rather than some totally different laws
Literally nothing can do this. It is not possible for a finite set of axioms to explain why the system it describes follows those axioms.

>>5874493

>you will never be able to play this game better than stan

this has been told to you already

cope with yourself you failure lol

>And since time doesn't exist if you have nothing, then that "something" will pop into existence instantly.
Nothing can change without time. And let's not pull "Oh, that's a physical law," either, because if things can change without time, then time not 'existing' is completely irrelevant. Basically, you're describing nothing existing but something existing, which doesn't make sense.

>>5874606
Meant for >>5872604

>>5874512

The problem with your point of view is that it is self defeating. If you don't want to dismiss absurdities as useless, then you undermine your own attempt at arguing, since arguments presuppose that absurdities ought to be avoided by a process of reasoning. If absurdities are embraced, then we're both right and we're both wrong in exactly the same way, and thus there's a hippo in the middle of the moon.

>I'm saying that something being inconceivable does not mean it is not possible.

You'll see that I never claimed otherwise. Rather, I'm saying that if something is inconceivable, then we should dispense with it, since it is indistinguishable from an impossibility.

> A rock cannot conceive anything at all, so therefore nothing can exist.

I wouldn't make this argument, nor is it an accurate example of my rationale. The question is: "do we have good reasons to accept that "nothing" is a possible alternative to "something?" We, as humans, can only judge what a good reason is on the basis of how our human mind operates; the perspective (if we can even call it that) of an object without a mind, like a rock, changes neither how our mind operates nor the conclusions that follow from this operation.

>A tribal person cannot conceive of human flight, so that must not exist.

The inability to imagine the inner mechanisms of an extremely complicated machine isn't a very good analogy for the inability to form a compound concept out of logically incompatible component concepts ("square" and "circle," "not" and "being"). There's nothing logically, conceptually, problematic about the idea of a flying machine, even if the blueprints of how one would work aren't yet drawn imagined.

>A concept does not need to be graspable to be extant

Yes, but it DOES need to be graspable for us to be justified in asserting its existence.

>Nothingness =/= Bad Math.

To the extent that both of them yield conceptual absurdities, I disagree.

>Mathematical certainty was questioned hundreds of years ago by Descartes if you want to go there.

It would be a dead end to go there, as it was for Descartes. He entertained his doubt to the point where he wondered if a powerful entity could make him believe that the conclusions of deductive mathematics were true even while being, unbeknownst to him, false. This would have left him with the knowledge of the cogito and nothing else, since if mathematical principles could be wrong while appearing certain, then all of his metaphysical principles (about objective reality and formal reality and infinity and divine benevolence, all of which he needed to prove the existence of God and the reality of the external world) could be wrong too. You see why he didn't pay much more attention to doubting math.

>To throw away nothingness as a concept is incredibly juvenile and presumptuous.

Only if I discarded it without study and critical thinking, and if I were unwilling to ever be persuaded otherwise. Neither is the case.

>>5874419
Since you mention round squares in the same breath as non-being, I'm going to hazard that you've read some Quine. And assuming you've read some Quine, I'm going to say you should be able to answer your own questions. 'Nothing' isn't something that exists, obviously, but just a placeholder for 'not any something' or something along those lines. 'Nothing xyz' is equivalent to 'for all things, it is true that not xyz.'

As an aside, I don't buy the equation of 'not being' with 'square circle,' because 'being' isn't something that exists, and 'not' claims nothing except in relation to the definition of 'being,' whereas 'circle' is a thing that 'square' modifies in predefined way ('square' would modify 'circle' the same way it would 'tree,' is what I mean).

>>5874944

I haven't read any Quine, except "Two Dogmas," the arguments of which were over my head. Aside from that, I've watched some interviews of him.

>I'm going to say you should be able to answer your own questions.

I can't speak for other people - I'm interested in what they think of when they think of "nothing," hence my question. But I've most often heard the description of empty space, so I wanted to anticipate that response.

>'Nothing' isn't something that exists, obviously, but just a placeholder for 'not any something' or something along those lines. 'Nothing xyz' is equivalent to 'for all things, it is true that not xyz.'

It seems that this is just to say that if we were to go along pointing at every object we came across, ad infinitum, and asked "is this nothing?" the result would be to answer "no" in every case. Is this result not implied by what I was arguing before? Maybe I'm missing some subtlety here, since I haven't yet engaged much with analytic philosophy.

>As an aside, I don't buy the equation of 'not being' with 'square circle,' because 'being' isn't something that exists,

I'd say that "being" is the most general kind of concept we can form, unsurpassably abstract, since it applies equally to every object. Like "dog-ness," there isn't any concrete thing that is "being," so in this sense it doesn't exist. But I want to say that "being" does have reference, and equally among all existing things.

>and 'not' claims nothing except in relation to the definition of 'being,'

I take it you're saying that "not" has no meaning independent of that which it negates. I'm okay with this; this is what I expect analytic philosophers would call a "connective."

>whereas 'circle' is a thing that 'square' modifies in predefined way ('square' would modify 'circle' the same way it would 'tree,' is what I mean).

So your counterargument seems to be that "not + being" can't be incoherent like "square + circle" is, because in the latter case both terms have meanings independently of the other, whereas in the former case only "being" has independent meaning. The significance of this might, in your opinion, be that an absurdity can only arise where two terms have incompatible independent meanings, not if only one of two terms has independent meaning.

If this is what you're arguing, here's my response: "not," the operation of negation, functions to keep things and classes of things conceptually separate. When we say that X is not a dog, we are saying that X belongs to some class that is outside of the class of all dogs. I might not know any of X's traits, and thus I don't know what class X belongs to, but to say that X isn't a dog is to say that X belongs to *some* class, even if indeterminate. But when we ascend via abstraction to the most general class of all, "being," there is no external class within which negation can place X. Thus, "being" can't be coherently negated.

>>5872243
You used a nickelback picture. Your thoughts are invalid.

>>5872243
Trust me OP, you don't want to know the answer

http://blurr1974.com/babble/2014/12/not-under-my-roof/..

>>5872243
Don't bother putting a scientific question before /lit/. The discussion inevitably goes nowhere because none of them know what they're talking about though all of them think they do.

>>5874482
>If it's inconceivable, it's impossible to distinguish from an impossibility, from a delusion.
No, it isn't. It's impossible for the human brain to envision space with more than three dimensions. However, more spatial dimensions could exist in the universe, if string theory is correct. So not being able to conceive of something has little to do with the possibility of that thing existing.

>>5874727
Ah, I see your point of view now. Sorry Anon. I guess I can see what you're pointing at, and I somewhat agree, but I suppose I'd like to hold on to concepts above understanding or human grasp. Suppose it's because I have a strange affinity for Plato, since I'd sort of came to a Formal conception of the universe on my own terms before delving into his philosophy (things only are because of their ability to be, as opposed to things that aren't. Similar, in my mind).

From that sort of point of view, one could argue that most everything is beyond one's grasp, save for one's self (or perhaps even not that). Kant had the thing-in-itself, which is different, but ends up in a similar space in terms of one's personal ability to know things on a fundamental level.

I suppose I just don't see the problem in striving for understanding despite the fact one cannot truly grasp something. Nothingness may be out of reach, but contemplation of nothingness still has value. The discussion of "if something can come from nothing" is a dubious one though, and I would agree there. Contemplating the concept itself, though, is a worthwhile endeavor in my mind.

In the end, I suppose I'd still go and say that something being inconceivable should not necessarily be dispensed with. Again, I would not put concepts above human grasp, such as nothingness (and arguably many other things, including one's own existence), as relating to things like mathematical absurdities or scenarios that break physical law or the like. 2+2=5 is meaningless and purely rhetorical. Pondering what was, or wasn't, before the existence of the universe is not something I'd consider absurd or meaningless in the same manner.

I understand dispensing with the concept, however.

>>5872243

No one knows bud. Not yet at least.

>The best minds through all of human history have spent their lives dedicated to this question and not come to an answer. Can you help /lit/?

>>5875121
> It seems that this is just to say that if we were to go along pointing at every object we came across, ad infinitum, and asked "is this nothing?" the result would be to answer "no" in every case
I'd say the slight difference is that you're asking "does this have quality x?", x being a quality that you've just affirmed of nothing. As in, if nothing is blue and not blue, that means I could ask 'is this thing blue and not blue?' of everything, and the answer would always be 'no.'

>So your counterargument seems to be that "not + being" can't be incoherent like "square + circle" is, because in the latter case both terms have meanings independently of the other, whereas in the former case only "being" has independent meaning. The significance of this might, in your opinion, be that an absurdity can only arise where two terms have incompatible independent meanings, not if only one of two terms has independent meaning.
Thank you for deciphering that admittedly horrible explanation.

>If this is what you're arguing, here's my response: "not," the operation of negation, functions to keep things and classes of things conceptually separate. When we say that X is not a dog, we are saying that X belongs to some class that is outside of the class of all dogs. I might not know any of X's traits, and thus I don't know what class X belongs to, but to say that X isn't a dog is to say that X belongs to *some* class, even if indeterminate. But when we ascend via abstraction to the most general class of all, "being," there is no external class within which negation can place X. Thus, "being" can't be coherently negated.
But I say that "being" is not the class of everything, but rather only of things that exist. Unicorns, for example, do not fall in that class, and therefore we can talk of the class of things that are not in the class "being."

Because nothing technically can't "be," you silly faggot.

>>5872243
>>5872243
why is there something rather than nothing? because there can be something. it doesn't have to be this something.
there are many ways for there to be something but only one way for there to be nothing.

>>5872635
>Why would they waste 5 seconds worrying about the laws of some world that doesn't exist?
Plenty of scientific experiments/explanations aren't always immediately useful or applicable, but are still interesting to think about.
Besides, wouldn't understanding why the laws of physics are a certain way and not another might reveal something about alternate or parallel universes?

>>5872895
>But not strictly into it. In the sense that birth and death exist simultaneously and in relation to each other.
How do they exist simultaneously and in relation to each other? Life is between them. They are exactly not simultaneous.

>>5875186

I'm the anon you're replying to, and you've got a good point with the inconceivable propositions of string theory (and I'd include quantum theory as well). I'm not nearly educated enough on these theories to have a strong opinion about them in this context, but I think it might be that formal systems, like the mathematics of string and quantum theory, can be used to deduce conclusions that follow from their premises but that seem incoherent to us. This might be more a matter of how formal systems work than a matter of revealing inconceivable truths about existence - and how we interpret the math can vary depending on what worldview we adopt. But again, I won't pretend to know either way.

Also, I have agreed in previous posts that >not being able to conceive of something has little to do with the possibility of that thing existing.

The question is whether we can have good reasons to believe in the possibility of Z if Z is inconceivable. Before, I said that if Z is inconceivable, then it is dispensable; but in the light of your counterargument, I might need to soften that claim. Maybe certain things like the predictive power of mathematical models can give us good reasons to believe in Z, even if Z is inconceivable.

>>5875262

>I'd say the slight difference is that you're asking "does this have quality x?", x being a quality that you've just affirmed of nothing. As in, if nothing is blue and not blue, that means I could ask 'is this thing blue and not blue?' of everything, and the answer would always be 'no.'

This is an interesting take, and it seems correct to me - assuming it's true that the term "nothing" is contradictory like "square circle" and "blue and not blue."

>But I say that "being" is not the class of everything, but rather only of things that exist. Unicorns, for example, do not fall in that class, and therefore we can talk of the class of things that are not in the class "being."

I think that in the case of unicorns and other merely imaginary beings, we're talking about concepts that have no reference to real objects; we talk about the concept "unicorn," and this concept exists, and is included in the class "being."

>>5877785
Would you define inconceivable? For example, it is impossible for us to conceive of higher dimensions, though we are leaning towards their existence, at least with time as a fourth dimension. Another inconceivable thing is how adding up all positive integers results in a sum of negative 1/12. Math works out without flaws, but it makes little sense to us.

Can we conceive, truly, the existence of thinking minds other than our own? Do we need to understand the thing-in-itself to truly conceive of something?

What's the criteria for inconceivability? This would help get everyone on the same page, I think.

>>5875326

>there are many ways for there to be something but only one way for there to be nothing.

I'd say that there is no way for there to be nothing.

>>5872243
>Why is there something rather than nothing?

Are you aware just how much nothing there really is? The universe is literally 99% void, and yet you cling to the 1% that is "something".

In modern language this is called confirmation bias.

>>5877851
>Implying dark matter and nothing are the same thing
>Implying that nothing can be even .01% of anything
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