There is nothing except when we say so.That's what we are like.We don't like the nothing idea and it's our language to play with.It may be different in other worlds,rural Wales for example,but we don't let little things like that put us off our stroke.
You can't expect intellectuals to dig ditches and stack shelves so we invented metaphysics to find something for them to do which was both harmless and time consuming not to say pecuniarily advantageous.
spendius wrote:There is nothing except when we say so.
I invite you to join Dr Samuel Johnson in kicking a rock.
Spendius is correct.
The "world" or "universe" is NOT an "event" !
An event requires an observer to define its boundaries. Even the "big bang" only has significance in the mind's eye of such an observer with a prior concept of "big" and "bang".
Had Dr Johnson been aware of contemporary sub-atomic views of "rocks" and "bodies" as mostly "empty space" he might have reflected a little on the stutus of so-called "metaphysics".
fresco -- so, then, the world is a non-event?
Merry Andrew.....of course !
The "world" can no more be "an event" any more than "clothes" could have "come into existence" without "wearers". Or perhaps a better analogy might be to compare the unity of observer-observed to a river.....both the flow of water and the geology of the terrain shape the course of the river....the river does not "exist" without both factors. We perhaps tend to observe from the point of view of the water as opposed that of the transcendent river......is a waterfall "an event" for river or only for a "bunch of water" ?
The world is neither an event or non-event.
twyvel wrote:The world is neither an event or non-event.
OK, I'll play along. What is it, then?
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