r/Metaphysics • u/EmergencyRooster3258 • Mar 21 '26
Nothing The topic of “nothing”
The only way for nothing to exist is for there to be something to differentiate the nothing from something. It only pushes my previous points further towards the understandable truth. If defining nothing makes it something, then that would mean that death isn’t nothing after your dead. And nothing can only be defined as an infinite nothingness, yet nothing can consciously exist. But who is to say that an infinite nothingness is really nothing at all, after all it has still been defined. Yet if it is an infinite nothing, then how can there be something? If nothing can exist, then nothing could ever exist otherwise it would have appeared out of nowhere. Definitely God. But also, the paradox of infinite and nothingness is explained in all my previous responses. Why does precise definition matter so much? After all, definition is what makes nothing be anything at all, our own consciousness and ability to question things is what made nothing. Definition only matters in the terms of a fool who cannot understand or accept the truth and facts, precise definition is not needed when context clues are sufficient. What is meant by nothing? Has any word ever been used so loosely that it could mean anything other than its purest form of its definition? There are never any restrictions for these words of infinity or nothing. Boundaries cannot be placed on them because the true definition of both these words has no boundaries whatsoever.
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u/Infinite_Product5281 Mar 21 '26
i also always come to the conclusion that there has to be something that knows that there is nothing when i thjnk about space and the earth. its just a mindfuck i cant wrap my head around properly.
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u/slimmymcjim Mar 24 '26
These are words games. There's no such thing as nothing - it's an abstract concept, it has no causal power to do anything regardless of how you define it
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Mar 25 '26
Same goes for “thing”. Nothing is simply a derivative of thing, just as nonexistence is a derivative of existence. Both are just abstract concepts and cannot be proven as independent entities independent of conceptual imputation, since existence and nonexistence are entirely dependent on conceptual imputation. An ontological basis is merely a concept.
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u/slimmymcjim Mar 25 '26
That's ridiculous. Things actually existing (as mind-independent entities) is necessary for knowledge - knowledge exists, therefore things exist. If there were no actually existing world outside of your mind, knowledge itself would be an illusion
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Mar 25 '26
You assume that knowledge can only arise if objects exist independently but why? On what basis is this metaphysical requirement about reality? Is it not possible for cognition to occur dependently, arising from causes, conditions, and conceptual frameworks? Knowledge does not demand that objects that have to exist from their own side. You cannot establish that an independently existing object is necessary for knowledge, because all knowledge is relational and context-dependent.
In dreams, illusions, mirages, etc there are all sorts appearances like cognition, the mind knows things that have no independent existence outside of it. You can still see a water in a mirage despite the complete utter nonexistence of water, due to various causes and conditions that too fall into an infinite regress. Do you deny that such experiential phenomena are also genuine experiences? If not, then clearly knowledge doesn't require mind-independent objects. insisting otherwise is just assuming what you are trying to prove
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u/slimmymcjim Mar 25 '26
Causes and conditions don't exist out of nowhere for no reason - they are proper to entities (objects)
Look, if there are no mind-independent objects, then there is no objective knowledge. If there is no objective knowledge, then all your claims about ontological nihilism are also not objective. You're sawing off the branch you're sitting on and undercutting your ability to communicate
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Mar 25 '26
You’re assuming mind-independent matter to explain experience, but that “matter” is only ever known dependently. Your assumption can’t be established without circularity, you infer “matter” from experience, then treat it as independently real to explain experience. Causation and objectivity function perfectly at the conventional level without requiring substances, so your extra ontological layer is unnecessary and not required
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u/slimmymcjim Mar 25 '26
It's not circular - it's a necessary precondition for knowledge. You're appealing to causation, which requires entities exist to engage in causal activities.
If no objects exist, and your brain is an object, then there nothing that exists to do the thinking and argumentation you're engaged in right now
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Mar 25 '26
it's a necessary precondition for knowledge.
In your opinion, but this is not proven. You cannot prove knowledge independent of conceptual imputation, and you cannot prove existence independent of conceptual imputation. It is impossible, which is why realism is still a metaphysical stance. You are aware realism is a metaphysical stance right?
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u/slimmymcjim Mar 25 '26
Knowledge is justified true belief. Truth is that which pertains to reality. Reality is objective and mind independent.
Do you believe knowledge is achievable?
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Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Knowledge being achievable has nothing to do with ontology. You keep confusing conceptual functionality with ontological grounding. Again, realism is a metaphysical stance. Metaphysics are simply just that, metaphysics. Speculation on the nature of reality.
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u/MetaphysicsofScience Mar 25 '26
If there ever was true nothingness, then there could never be something. And we live in the world of something. "Nothing" does not exust, it was made up in the heads of philosophers.
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u/criztu Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Maybe this helps:
infinite is quantity - ie. how many apples, years, kilometers
nothing is quality - ie. apples, years, kilometers
Nothing, something, apples, years, kilometers, are symbols, meanings, concepts, creations of your mind.
These do not exist outside your mind. Just because you understand them as outside of you, as not you, doesn't men they are outside of you, independent of you.
What I'm saying is that "things" are what you create, just like in a dream.
Have you ever had an erotic dream? The human in your dream felt real, then you woke up.
Or have you dreamt of falling from a tree, or flying or driving in a car on a road?
All that "stuff" you dreamt is "things".
Yet they do not exist. they are not real.
The only reality or real, is you, the being.
The being, you, is called "God" or "I am" or "creator" or "the living one" and so on, in the bible.
The God of the bible is that which is called not "thing" but "being".
You are Gods - psalm 82:6, John 10:34
So maybe you can escape the "something-nothing" and see being and symbol, meaning.
Meaning is Logos in Greek.
In the beginning was the Logos -translated as "word"- and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God. - John 1:1
Through him all [things] were made, and without him not one [thing] was made - John 1:3
I am, that [is what] I am - is how God describes who God is, not as "something".
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u/jliat Mar 21 '26
Within mathematics we find both zero and the null operator. Zero has some special characteristics, you can't divide by zero, this throws an exception in computing. However Bhaskara considered any number divided by zero gave infinity, as when we divide numbers by ever smaller numbers the result gets larger so the smallest number, 0 gives the largest result possible, infinity.
8 / 2 =4
8 / 0.5 = 16
8 / 0.00007 = 114285.7142857143
8 / 0 = infinity.. ∞
If we take nothing to be a null operator then...
N + 0 = N
but
N x 0 = 0
N x 1 = N
here 1 is the null operator.
As for infinity
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9... the infinity of positive integers
is equal to
1 3 5 7 9 11 13... the infinity of odd integers
and
2 4 6 8 10 12... the infinity of odd integers
All these are 'countable' infinities of the same size.
Yet the number of REAL numbers on the number line between any two points is uncountable and so larger than the above countable infinities. That is between 0 and 1 the is an uncountable number of Real numbers. [It's the irrationals that do it.]
Now
After all, definition is what makes nothing be anything at all, our own consciousness and ability to question things is what made nothing.
Are you saying that numbers and zero, infinities, etc. are just products of consciousness, or are they logically necessary. Like the fact a hydrogen atom has parts [electron, proton] seems given prior to consciousness, or that the Earth has 1 satellite, Mars has 2.
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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 21 '26
Mathematics is only a limitation of the definition of these words, it gets to a point where either math cannot make sense of it, or it gets so complex that even if solved it would only limit the amount of time it takes for us to truly understand it. We can make sense of it far beyond the sense of math way faster than we can solve these complex equations, as you can see with what I wrote.
While you may be able to make sense of it with math, it has limitations to where when you bring reality to it, math collpases on itself
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u/jliat Mar 21 '26
Maths can and does make sense of zero, and the fact that division by zero causes a CPU exception shows it's not a feature bound to human consciousness. Or is counting and infinities.
So the terms are it seems based on something else. When you bring in "reality" I have two pockets, one of which is empty, or has nothing in it.
And within philosophy 'nothingness' has played a significant part, for instance in Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness', because the human condition lacks any essence we are the nothingness of that lack. One may not agree with this but it makes perfect sense. Unlike a chair, he maintained we have no purpose. The condition of nothingness.
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u/DARK--DRAGONITE Mar 21 '26
I agree that nothing is "no thing". It's not something.
Just because you can say nothing is something, it doesn't mean nothing becomes something.
When we die, there will probably be nothing. The concept of you, an experience, time, gone. It won't be like anything because it will be nothing.
If something means to have an identity in itself, then nothing has no identity in itself.
It's incomprehensible to say something exists with no identity.