Imparcticle said:
I will begin this thread with an example. Take "nothing" for example. It is defined as "non-existence" in short. Though the use of the word in common terms is more directed towards absence (which does not neccesarily signify non-existence...bare with me on those semantics...I can't help it). Anywho, some people who are on a more philosophical mindset might try to understand such a "state". Note, that doing so is futile. "Nothing" does not exist, therefore, it's pointless to try and acknowledge its existence.
And so my problem emerges. By saying that it is impossible for something that doesn't exist to exist, am I also saying that something that does not exist CAN not not exist??
This has been bugging me for a full 48 hours. I am beginning (yes, just beginning) to think it is a rather pointless (oh deer, that would make it non existent! :surprise: ) problem, with no meaning whatsoever. I hope I'm wrong.
I am glad that you started this topic as a separate thread, as this is precisely what I have been battling with everywhere else. That 'Nothing' exists goes against the very essence of critical and clear thinking. So many things have been said about this issue such that it becomes more and more confused. And these are just some of them:
1) That 'Nothing' esists or that there is such thing as 'Nothing'
2) That there is a clearly quantifiable relation between 'Nothing' and 'Something'
3) That 'Nothing' can give rise to 'Something' (that is, bring something into being)
4) That 'Something' can decline or change into 'Nothing'
But the most problematic aspect of all this is that it seems as if in all our declaratory, existential and explanatory claims in our natural language and in our day-to-day interactions with each other we are 'THINKING' that:
5) When something is invisible or unobservable that it is non-physical
6) When something is invisible or unobservable that it is non-existent
And so far everyone seems to be very sly about them and consequently systematically avoid them. Go to the metaphysical, philosophical, epistemolgical sections and see how people systematically avoid all these questions. I have been arguing all along that we should be brave and confront these questions head on. My Position has always been this:
1) There has never been and there will never be 'Nothing'
2) Since there is no 'Nothing' there is no natural clarifying relation between 'Something' and 'Nothing'
3) Since (1) and (2) are completely and wholly true 'Nothing' cannot give rise to Something, nor neither can anything which is Something decline or change into 'Nothing'.
4) Mathematics, Our natural Languages, and any other quatificational and declaratory aparatuses may very well make references to 'Nothing' and its realtion to 'Something', I argue that such references are fundamentally fictional and intellectually misleading.