Does "Nowhere" Exist?

One must be careful to take into account the operation/function of words such as these. This is not the same as asking if nothing exists. noweher/somewhere etc... function as indefinite deictic proforms. They aren't actual places or references to actual places their antecedents aren't the nouns of place. Their antecedents are the deictic locations.

In the sentences. (a. Where have you been? b. oh nowhere.) the answer of nowehere is not refering to the place the person has been it is refering to the indefiniteness of the place that s/he hasn't been. Functionally nowhere is a non-place it is a functional obfuscation.

In the sentence (My keys are nowhere to be found) nowehere is not referring to the place the keys are, it is refering to the places that they have not been found. Again it serves as a reference to the indefiniteness of the many places looked.

The words somewhere, anywhere, etc.. work much the same.
(my keyes are somewhere) somewhere refers to a series of may indefinite places of possibility.
(Couldn't find my keyes anywhere) all the places I have looked did not have my keys.

So these indefinite proforms serve a grammatical function of coupling the indefinite with the concept of deixis (space/time) in reference to the speaker.

So asking if nowhere exists is asking if the indefinite exists.

0 Replies

@mark noble,

mark noble wrote:

Hi All!

As it reads - Does "nowhere" exist?

Have a great day!

Mark...

Depends on your definition of "existence."
By mine, nowhere does not exist.

0 Replies

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

1 Reply

@Pemerson,

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

Exactly nowhere is in reference to all the somewhere's (or everywhere) you have looked. Obviously you are saying that billy is somewhere. Not even you are going to claim that Billy poofed out of existence. Learn your own language before you lecture.

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

Exactly nowhere is in reference to all the somewhere's (or everywhere) you have looked. Obviously you are saying that billy is somewhere. Not even you are going to claim that Billy poofed out of existence. Learn your own language before you lecture.

When I say that Billy is nowhere to be found I am saying that Billy is somewhere? Obviously, if there is a Billy, then he is somewhere. But that is not what I am saying when I say he is nowhere to be found. What I am saying is, of course, that he cannot be found. "Nowhere" is not the name of somewhere, anymore than "nothing" is the name of something. Both "nowhere" and "nothing" function as negative operators. Thus, "there is nothing in the drawer" does not mean that there is something in the drawer whose name is "nothing". It mean that it is not the case that there is an object in the drawer. (In plain English, "that the drawer is empty"). And similarly, to say that Billy is nowhere to be found is not to say that there is a place we can find Billy whose name is "nowhere". What it means is, "It is not the case that Billy can be found". Or, in plain English, "No one can find Billy". To repeat, just as "nothing" is not the name of something, so "nowhere" is not the name of someplace. Neither "nothing" nor "nowhere" are names at all. They are (in logic-speak) "logical particles", like "not", and "it is not the case that". It is because they are grammatically nouns that they are misleading, and make people think that they are names. But they do not function as names, as I explained.

"Philosophy is a constant battle against the bewitchment of the intelligence by language" (Wittgenstein) and the belief that "nowhere" is the name of some place, is an excellent example of what Wittgenstein meant. We are misled into thinking that "nowhere" is the name of somewhere, and then invent " somewheres " for "nowhere" to name. The solution, of course is to recognize that "nowhere" is not the the name of a somewhere, and then we are not misled into inventing a somewhere for "nowhere" to name.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

Exactly nowhere is in reference to all the somewhere's (or everywhere) you have looked. Obviously you are saying that billy is somewhere. Not even you are going to claim that Billy poofed out of existence. Learn your own language before you lecture.

When I say that Billy is nowhere to be found I am saying that Billy is somewhere? Obviously, if there is a Billy, then he is somewhere. But that is not what I am saying when I say he is nowhere to be found. What I am saying is, of course, that he cannot be found. "Nowhere" is not the name of somewhere, anymore than "nothing" is the name of something. Both "nowhere" and "nothing" function as negative operators. Thus, "there is nothing in the drawer" does not mean that there is something in the drawer whose name is "nothing". It mean that it is not the case that there is an object in the drawer. (In plain English, "that the drawer is empty"). And similarly, to say that Billy is nowhere to be found is not to say that there is a place we can find Billy whose name is "nowhere". What it means is, "It is not the case that Billy can be found". Or, in plain English, "No one can find Billy". To repeat, just as "nothing" is not the name of something, so "nowhere" is not the name of someplace. Neither "nothing" nor "nowhere" are names at all. They are (in logic-speak) "logical particles", like "not", and "it is not the case that".

A functional comparison of nowhere and nothing is an apple and orange comparison they cannot be compared. Nothing refers back to a thing through tangibility as a direct negative of a thing. As in there is a thing, there is not a thing. One cannot do that with a where. Unless one is using it adverbially in which case doing nothing like having nothing can be directly demonstrable. However somewhere and nowhere are not referring to demonstrable objects/actions or lack thereof. They operate through an entirely different grammatical function (deixis - reference to or about the distance in space time and/or definiteness from the speaker) All where's operate in deictic function, but indefinite wheres also act as indefinite, which is another difference between nothing and nowhere. nothing is functionally definite because it is immediately demonstrable, while nowhere is functionally indefinite because it refers to a variety of wheres or a proto-where of sorts.

We are talking functional language as spoken not your variety of formal logic. So when saying (Billy can be found nowhere) one must automatically assume that there has been at least a rudimentary search for him. In that search people looked places where Billy wasn't. So in saying it billy is not in the various places in which were searched. And nowhere refers to everywhere Billy is not.

2 Replies

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

Exactly nowhere is in reference to all the somewhere's (or everywhere) you have looked. Obviously you are saying that billy is somewhere. Not even you are going to claim that Billy poofed out of existence. Learn your own language before you lecture.

When I say that Billy is nowhere to be found I am saying that Billy is somewhere? Obviously, if there is a Billy, then he is somewhere. But that is not what I am saying when I say he is nowhere to be found. What I am saying is, of course, that he cannot be found. "Nowhere" is not the name of somewhere, anymore than "nothing" is the name of something. Both "nowhere" and "nothing" function as negative operators. Thus, "there is nothing in the drawer" does not mean that there is something in the drawer whose name is "nothing". It mean that it is not the case that there is an object in the drawer. (In plain English, "that the drawer is empty"). And similarly, to say that Billy is nowhere to be found is not to say that there is a place we can find Billy whose name is "nowhere". What it means is, "It is not the case that Billy can be found". Or, in plain English, "No one can find Billy". To repeat, just as "nothing" is not the name of something, so "nowhere" is not the name of someplace. Neither "nothing" nor "nowhere" are names at all. They are (in logic-speak) "logical particles", like "not", and "it is not the case that".

A functional comparison of nowhere and nothing is an apple and orange comparison they cannot be compared. Nothing refers back to a thing through tangibility as a direct negative of a thing. As in there is a thing, there is not a thing. One cannot do that with a where. Unless one is using it adverbially in which case doing nothing like having nothing can be directly demonstrable. However somewhere and nowhere are not referring to demonstrable objects/actions or lack thereof. They operate through an entirely different grammatical function (deixis - reference to or about the distance in space time and/or definiteness from the speaker) All where's operate in deictic function, but indefinite wheres also act as indefinite, which is another difference between nothing and nowhere. nothing is functionally definite because it is immediately demonstrable, while nowhere is functionally indefinite because it refers to a variety of wheres or a proto-where of sorts.

We are talking functional language as spoken not your variety of formal logic. So when saying (Billy can be found nowhere) one must automatically assume that there has been at least a rudimentary search for him. In that search people looked places where Billy wasn't. So in saying it billy is not in the various places in which were searched. And nowhere refers to everywhere Billy is not.

I have no idea what a "functional comparison" is, so for all I know you may be right. But it is clear enough that just as " nothing" is not the name of something when we say, for instance" that there is nothing in the drawer, so "nowhere" is not the name of "somewhere" when we say, for instance, that Billy is nowhere. There is no place that is called "nowhere" just as there is no thing that is called, "nothing". And if you are saying that the two terms cannot be compares is obviously false. To say that "nowhere" refers to every place that Billy is not, is like saying that "nothing" in the sentence, "Nothing is in the drawer" refers to everything that is not in the drawer. Both statements are not only false, but silly. So, to repeat what I have already said, neither the terms, "nowhere" nor, "nothing", in spite of their grammatical status as nouns, are referring terms, but are logical particles. And, their grammatical appearance misleads into thinking that the former refers to a place, and the latter to a thing. And you have fallen into the trap of inventing an preposterous place for "nowhere" to refer (every place that is nowhere). What you do perfectly illustrates how "philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of the intelligence by language", although you have illustrated that by losing the battle.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:

Pemerson wrote:

Nowhere does not exist. There is no where, anywhere.

Have a great everything, somewhere, wherever you are

pemerson

Nowhere does exist because it refers to everywhere but the one place. Its function is to represent the everywhere that the topic isn't.

So, if I say that Billy can be found nowhere, I am really saying that there is somewhere that he can be found? And that he is everywhere but one place? Nah! Not in English, anyway. But, come to think of it, you might not care about that.

Exactly nowhere is in reference to all the somewhere's (or everywhere) you have looked. Obviously you are saying that billy is somewhere. Not even you are going to claim that Billy poofed out of existence. Learn your own language before you lecture.

When I say that Billy is nowhere to be found I am saying that Billy is somewhere? Obviously, if there is a Billy, then he is somewhere. But that is not what I am saying when I say he is nowhere to be found. What I am saying is, of course, that he cannot be found. "Nowhere" is not the name of somewhere, anymore than "nothing" is the name of something. Both "nowhere" and "nothing" function as negative operators. Thus, "there is nothing in the drawer" does not mean that there is something in the drawer whose name is "nothing". It mean that it is not the case that there is an object in the drawer. (In plain English, "that the drawer is empty"). And similarly, to say that Billy is nowhere to be found is not to say that there is a place we can find Billy whose name is "nowhere". What it means is, "It is not the case that Billy can be found". Or, in plain English, "No one can find Billy". To repeat, just as "nothing" is not the name of something, so "nowhere" is not the name of someplace. Neither "nothing" nor "nowhere" are names at all. They are (in logic-speak) "logical particles", like "not", and "it is not the case that".

A functional comparison of nowhere and nothing is an apple and orange comparison they cannot be compared. Nothing refers back to a thing through tangibility as a direct negative of a thing. As in there is a thing, there is not a thing. One cannot do that with a where. Unless one is using it adverbially in which case doing nothing like having nothing can be directly demonstrable. However somewhere and nowhere are not referring to demonstrable objects/actions or lack thereof. They operate through an entirely different grammatical function (deixis - reference to or about the distance in space time and/or definiteness from the speaker) All where's operate in deictic function, but indefinite wheres also act as indefinite, which is another difference between nothing and nowhere. nothing is functionally definite because it is immediately demonstrable, while nowhere is functionally indefinite because it refers to a variety of wheres or a proto-where of sorts.

We are talking functional language as spoken not your variety of formal logic. So when saying (Billy can be found nowhere) one must automatically assume that there has been at least a rudimentary search for him. In that search people looked places where Billy wasn't. So in saying it billy is not in the various places in which were searched. And nowhere refers to everywhere Billy is not.

I have no idea what a "functional comparison" is, so for all I know you may be right. But it is clear enough that just as " nothing" is not the name of something when we say, for instance" that there is nothing in the drawer, so "nowhere" is not the name of "somewhere" when we say, for instance, that Billy is nowhere. There is no place that is called "nowhere" just as there is no thing that is called, "nothing". And if you are saying that the two terms cannot be compares is obviously false. To say that "nowhere" refers to every place that Billy is not, is like saying that "nothing" in the sentence, "Nothing is in the drawer" refers to everything that is not in the drawer. Both statements are not only false, but silly.

Because you are comparing them as if they had the same proformal function which they do not. Nothing is demonstrative and and nowhere is indefinite. Also nothing is not the opposite of something because something is also indefinite. Nothing is the opposite of a thing or the thing as in not a thing. This also messes up your comparison of things and wheres. Things to not refer to distances and wheres do. So nowhere indeed refers to everywhere billy is not, and if you read the posts instead of react to the posts, everywhere Billy is not that has been searched. It can and does just that because it is indefinite.

I have hesitated to use the term semi-definite, because it ventures outside the realm of 6th grade grammar and I'll be accused of speaking lingusitese or some such crap. But if you would like the honest functional low down, somewhere falls into the semi definite, which is a category used for functions that infer a boundary but no a specific within a boundary. Some languages have actual grammatic usage of the semi-definite, some, like English, rely on context and inference. So for a more specific functional usage of somewhere as typically used one would say it is semi-definite and not pure indefinite. Meaning that for all the places billy might be he is nowhere we have looked. Nowhere referring to the spacial boundary of everywhere that 'we' speaker included have looked. However this still does not affect the differences between functionality of nowhere and the grammatical systems through which it operates and the functionality of nowhere and the grammatical systems through which it operates.

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

However this still does not affect the differences between functionality of nowhere and the grammatical systems through which it operates and the functionality of nowhere and the grammatical systems through which it operates.

[/quote]

Why don't you stop the cloud of jargon, and address my arguments? Is "nowhere" a name or isn't it? If I say that Billy is nowhere to be found, have I named any place he is to be found, or have I simply denied that he can be found? It is clearly the latter, not the former. At least if you speak English. "Nowhere" is not a place, just as "nothing" is not a thing. Now, try to reply to that, and forget all the jargon and vague theory that muddles it all up. That stuff has nothing to do with the issue, nor with philosophy. It is just indulging in your irresistible penchant for academese. You seem unable to see the point, much less get to the point.

0 Replies

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

And nowhere refers to everywhere Billy is not.

If that were so, "Billy can be found nowhere" would mean "Billy can be found everywhere he is not". That cannot be right!

2 Replies

@ACB,

ACB wrote:

GoshisDead wrote:
And nowhere refers to everywhere Billy is not.

If that were so, "Billy can be found nowhere" would mean "Billy can be found everywhere he is not". That cannot be right!

Of course it can't. But here comes a cloud of jargon simply ignoring the argument. The point is that since "nowhere" is not a name at all, it is not the name of a place. If this is not understood, then those who do not understand it will invent ridiculous places for "nowhere" to name. Like, "everywhere that is not nowhere". Once nonsense is accepted it has to be protected with more nonsense. (It is like lying in that respect. Once you lie, you have to protect your lie with further lies).

0 Replies

@ACB,

ACB one should remember that language does not follow the rules of formal logic. One has to not only take into account the context of any given utterance as well as any normal inference that any given utterance may express. Unlike in logic a proform (a non-specific form that stands for a specific form) can represent an implied antecedent (that which is represented by a proform). Also remember that words function as meaning containers, their form is arbitrary. Also remember that a dictionary definition is not a functional definition.

Sentence: Billy is nowhere to be found.
Part of speech (nowhere) adverb modifying where Billy is/is not found. unlike with nothing which is a pronoun and represents the absence of a thing nowhere is an adverb modifying the the verb to find. We are not referencing an actual place per se we are representing the modification of how the verb happened which was searching place to place to place.

Context: If billy can be found nowhere. find being in the past tense means that there was a search and in all the places searched Billy was not in them. So all the places searched should be represented somewhere in the sentence to communicate that the finding was unproductive. the places cannot be represented by [Billy] or [is], or [to] or be or [found], which leaves [nowhere] to represent the modification of to find or where billy isn't that was searched.

Semi definite (read prior post please): the term nowhere creates a boundary of all the places searched that billy was not found. This leaves billy somewhere else, obviously. so nowhere's antecedent is all the places searched that Billy was not found that can be expressed as everywhere Billy wasn't found.

@Ken I understand you are not capable of understanding anything you don't agree with. I also understand you are not capable of understanding that people operate under other forms of logic than standardized formal logic mostly because you disagree with it. So feel free to to rant and piss and moan about jargon all you want, as you can see, any jargon I may have used in the above post was clearly defined.

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

ACB one should remember that language does not follow the rules of formal logic. One has to not only take into account the context of any given utterance as well as any normal inference that any given utterance may express. Unlike in logic a proform (a non-specific form that stands for a specific form) can represent an implied antecedent (that which is represented by a proform). Also remember that words function as meaning containers, their form is arbitrary. Also remember that a dictionary definition is not a functional definition.

Sentence: Billy is nowhere to be found.
Part of speech (nowhere) adverb modifying where Billy is/is not found. unlike with nothing which is a pronoun and represents the absence of a thing nowhere is an adverb modifying the the verb to find. We are not referencing an actual place per se we are representing the modification of how the verb happened which was searching place to place to place.

Context: If billy can be found nowhere. find being in the past tense means that there was a search and in all the places searched Billy was not in them. So all the places searched should be represented somewhere in the sentence to communicate that the finding was unproductive. the places cannot be represented by [Billy] or [is], or [to] or be or [found], which leaves [nowhere] to represent the modification of to find or where billy isn't that was searched.

Semi definite (read prior post please): the term nowhere creates a boundary of all the places searched that billy was not found. This leaves billy somewhere else, obviously. so nowhere's antecedent is all the places searched that Billy was not found that can be expressed as everywhere Billy wasn't found.

@Ken I understand you are not capable of understanding anything you don't agree with. I also understand you are not capable of understanding that people operate under other forms of logic than standardized formal logic mostly because you disagree with it. So feel free to to rant and piss and moan about jargon all you want, as you can see, any jargon I may have used in the above post was clearly defined.

Just as I predicted, a flood of empty jargon.
What is a "form of logic"? Name one. What ACB wrote was right. What you wrote implied something that made no sense. And therefore, it made no sense. I would advise that you ought to think about it, but then what would be the point of such advice? As Kant famously said, "Ought implies can".

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Just as I predicted, a flood of empty jargon.
What is a "form of logic"? Name one. What ACB wrote was right. What you wrote implied something that made no sense. And therefore, it made no sense. I would advise that you ought to think about it, but then what would be the point of such advice? As Kant famously said, "Ought implies can".

Correction, what I said makes no sense to you, not what i said makes no sense. For all the Wittgenstein and "philosophers of language" you vomit into the forum you have no idea how language is constructed, processed, or used. It must be nice to conveniently retreat into the " oh now s/he's using jargon to confuse us rhetoric every time you have no idea what you are doing. As I said I defined every linguistic term that was not taught of all of us by the 6th grade. There is no way to credibly accuse me of jargonism.

1 Reply

Hello Mark,

Of course no where exists! That’s where no one and no thing and no place is. I thought you knew that. If you have ever been there, please tell me what no one and no thing and no place looks like. Ha! That would be something if you were able to do that. Uh oh, wasted trip, damn!

William

2 Replies

@William,

William wrote:

Hello Mark,

Of course no where exists! That’s where no one and no thing and no place is. I thought you knew that. If you have ever been there, please tell me what no one and no thing and no place looks like. Ha! That would be something if you were able to do that. Uh oh, wasted trip, damn!

William

Yes, there have been times when I believed I was somewhere, but later felt that I had been nowhere. Some parties are like that.

0 Replies

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Just as I predicted, a flood of empty jargon.
What is a "form of logic"? Name one. What ACB wrote was right. What you wrote implied something that made no sense. And therefore, it made no sense. I would advise that you ought to think about it, but then what would be the point of such advice? As Kant famously said, "Ought implies can".

Correction, what I said makes no sense to you, not what i said makes no sense. For all the Wittgenstein and "philosophers of language" you vomit into the forum you have no idea how language is constructed, processed, or used. It must be nice to conveniently retreat into the " oh now s/he's using jargon to confuse us rhetoric every time you have no idea what you are doing. As I said I defined every linguistic term that was not taught of all of us by the 6th grade. There is no way to credibly accuse me of jargonism.

If what you wrote only did not make sense to me, but made sense, you would be able to translate it into ordinary plain English and drop the jargon. But apparently, the jargon is essential to what you say. That is, you cannot say what you mean in a way that is available to anyone who can speak English. No need for definitions. Especially since your definitions just be in terms of more impenetrable further jargon. What we need is for you to say it all in English and not your version of philosophese. Are you able to do that?

1 Reply

@William,

But as long as at least one thing exists, everything else has a place in relation to that object. As we can be sure one thing exists (thought), everything else has a place, even if it's just "Outside of our conscious." If nowhere exists somewhere, then it is not nowhere. If nowhere does not exist somewhere, nowhere does not exist.

1 Reply

Does "Nowhere" Exist?

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