There is no such thing as NOTHING, so...........

Tywvel, the reason I do not ultimately accept Kant's noumena is that its opposition to phenomena is dualistic. This does not mean, however, that the distinction is absolutely useless and counterproductive for (intellectual) philosophy; it is just useless for the mystical immediate (non-intellectual) apprehension of Reality. All dualistic notions are equally useless for this purpose.

Yes JLNobody Kant is unnecessarily dualistic. It reminds me of something I read of I think of the philosopher Daniel Dennett, "that materialism, even though not defendable must be right for the alternative is unacceptable." (heavily paraphrased)…..though I know that's not what you are saying.

And yes for sure we are indebted to dualists for helping to define the position we had to work our way out of, and for indirectly aiding in defining/articulating nondualism, from the outside,.... so to speak.

Though if dualism were not held not only as a belief but as a fact for many, I imagine this manifestation would be quite different.

Re: There is no such thing as NOTHING, so...........


also our science says that: "nothing can be created from nothing, nothing created can be destroyed. even energy can turn into something else."
If you ask me, there is nothing called nothing. there cannot exist. cause existence itself consists of something :wink:

"nothing" exists because "something" exists. just as black could not exist without it's precise opposite, white; "something" cannot exist without "nothing".

USAFHokie80:
Your dualism is getting quite a semantic exercise........but that "something" can ONLY exist in "nothing" seems to be stretching it a
bit !!!

If we had no language or conception of colors, there would be no "black" as an idea. Nevertheless, there might be the kinds of physical phenomena which, together with our physiological optical functions, would be experienced as black. The oppositional relationship between "black" and "white" does not exist in the physical world as such; it exists in the realm of our ideas about our categories of experiences, such as black and white, up and down, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, etc. etc..

I agree completely JL. That was my entire point. "Nothing" is simply a "color." But I would still like to point out the fact that our inability to produce "nothing" (or is it *not* produce?) in a vacuum or elsewhere, does not in ANY way negate its existance. I only say this because this was one of the first arguments against it. Until relatively recently, we could not produce quarks from smashing protons and neutrons, that did not stop them from actually existing. We simply did not have the technology to do such a thing.

USAFHokie:

I think "nothing" in a word with no meaning.
You see, substantives must be predicable. For instance, a tree is green, the sun is a star. But in the case of "nothing" - as opposite of existence- all predicates we give to that word supposes existence. You can't say "nothing is" because it is a contraditcion. When you say "nothing" that has the meaning of non-being.
Or, predicates always suppose existence - at least potential existence. Anything you say about nothing would suppose existence and this is, by definition, impossible.
If nothing exists then it is something (and not nothing).

Sure you case use the word "nothing" in a metaphorical sense (for instance when you say, "I looked at the table and there is nothing" you mean that you didn't see what you were looking for).

But "nothing" as "non-being" is, in my opinion, a meaningless word. Like all words that cannot be predicate.

Re: There is no such thing as NOTHING, so...........


If we were to separate out from your initial post two things the words and the intentions am I correct that your intentions were more directed at the state of the universe prior to the big bang and the point of the thread was directed more so to elaborate your opinion that prior to the big bang the universe could not have been made of nothing ? I think that was the point you were trying to make but I could be wrong. I agree that there could not be nothing in an infinite universe prior to our big bang and suggest you check out two other threads in the philosophy and debate forum related to an infinite universe and other universes where ample debate has taken place as to the nature of the nothing that we can know nothing about prior to the big bang.

For me, the point singularity that created our big bang was in motion at the time of expansion thus it must have existed inside a larger pocket of space-time. All we know of our minute universe would be our pocket of space-time but it is just one of an infinite number of such pockets of space-time so in that sense, there is no such thing as nothingness. There may be large areas of mostly empty space but since I also feel there is no smallest particle of matter than no matter how small an area you try to close off and create a perfect vacuum it is impossible for it not to contain an infinite number of undetectable sub-point particles since there exists an infinite chain of smaller particles of matter.

'nothingness', while it may not exist as a concrete evidentially describable, phenomenon, anywhere within our known universe, or even the 'Ultiverse' concept, is the defining 'concept' of nonbeing, in light of which all else is described, and given properties.

What is more 'real' than a concept? [be it true, or not!]

[and, lets not forget 'relative' 'nothingness'!]

I congratulate, Alikimr, Nipok, BoGoWo, USAFHokie and Val (and of course Twyvel) for some very impressive thinking.
And boy are you guys thinking BIG, as illustrated by Nipok's use of the phrase, "our minute universe."

I seems to me that Val's comment on the conceptual meaninglessness of "nothing" has merit. We use the notion usefully as a high-level abstraction in contrast to "something", because that's how many of our meanings arise: in terms of complementary and mutually-defining opposites. But Val's rejection of "nothing" as a predicate of subtantive objects makes good sense. We can say that a car does not have the color red on it, but we cannot say that the car doesn't exist. Nothingness cannot be a global quality of something, just as somethingness cannot be a quality of nothing. At least not as an abstract principle. At the same time, I agree that nothingness IS something, but it is clearly not the same kind of somethingness as that contained by substantives. Yet, there is a problem here (I am thinking out loud here). It may be said that all "things" are, in a sense--perhaps a Buddhist sense--empty, meaning that they are processes rather than static and solid objects. The Heart Sutra reminds us that all form is emptiness and all emptiness is form. A possible example of the latter, as I understand it: the space within a seashell is "nothing" yet it HAS a shape.
Also, it's meaningless to say that when I die, "I" (the word refers to a physical phenomenon), I'll become nothing. How can a non-being (i.e., a non-subject) have the predicate of non-existence, non-being, or BEING IN a state of oblivion?

-edited, 10/8/04

JLN:
It is you who should be congratulated for managing to explain your views so effectively....
and doing so by always expressing them , as the ancient Greeks used to say, "in moderation".
I have one point , however, that I must
ask you to clarify. Since ALL things are in a constant
state of flux (in the state of process that you refer to),why is it necessary for you to say that they are
"empty",in a Buddhist sense notwithstanding?
After all you are talking about all life around us, ......CHANGE is THE quality of life that is
its fundamental constant. To label it as "empty" , in
any sense, is a complete denial of its essence.

Thanks for your compliment, Alikimr. I try because the standards have been set so high by our pariticipants. I did make some small editorial changes in the last post.
I understand your point. To say that all is "empty" just because all is changing would seem to contradict the perceived reality of the fullness of existence. What I mean is that since all "things" are changing, they are not truly things in the sense of static, fixed, objects. They are always in the process of becoming something else, and that something else is equally in flux. One might say that all things are un-becoming. I remember once in graduate school when a famous thinker, Gregory Bateson, came to talk to a seminar as a guest of the department. He presented the thesis that the world can only be linguistically described by means of verbs and adverbs, but that we "grasp" the world more easily in terms of nouns and adjectives. I'm probably distorting his position a bit, to make it sound more like mine. But I remember how much resistance the students of the seminar presented to his thesis. We argued (myself included) that for something to change it had to be a changing THING, there must be "objects" IN PROCESS, (subjects and predicates) not just processes. I believe now, 36 years later, that he was right. There are only processes and no-things in process. Emptiness is one way to describe it, but, obviously, not the clearest way to do so.
I am not denying the existence of the world, only the existence of its object-ness; I prefer to think of the world in terms of the existence of its process-ness.

Wonderfully put, Twyvel. I hear you saying that there is only sunyatta (emptiness/changing). There are no things (subject) that are empty (predicate) in nature. When Heraclitus informed us that we cannot step into the same river twice, he meant, I presume, that we are not the same person to step in the not-same river either. Even the minerals, lead and diamond, are change (notice, I did not say THEY are changing). Their rate of change is too slow for us to conceive of them as other than "solid" and unchangingly permanent. That's a fundamental illusion, like the subject-object dichotomy.

JLNobody, I'm starting to melt,

I don't know who came back in response to Heraclitus with, "We cannot step in the same river once"……but, as you have noted the word 'same' cannot be applied to the river or we.

Twyvel, I don't remember who said it, but I remember it. What a wit.

From reading the arguments listed here I came to a premise with a conclusion. I think that one of the universal problems with the minds of men who haven't yet learned to think out of the box is the historical notion of creation. Most men believe that every thing involves some form of creation since he was of course conceived from it, this idea hinders thinking. So historically, most perceptions and notions have been built upon this foundation. This brain washing has to be stopped somewhere, is everything dependent on the creation of something else or could there be an exsistance clearly independent of creation? Ask your self this question, absorb the thought. I think this lapse in brain function is due to serveral intrinsities. Can one phathom the idea of exsistance without creation, it is a possiblity. After you gain an understanding of this concept an idea of nothingness will appear and it's true value will be elucidated! I hope this helps the clouded mind.

Doneitbefore, I suspect you're on to something, but you need to rephrase your argument. At present it only presents my brain with an additional cloud.
Not that I am always more clear.

doneitbefore:
After following JLN's suggestion, I
believe you will be saying that you agree with
nearly all of the posts, as well as the original thesis
.....or am I reading you incorrectly?
At any rate, welcome aboard!