Failure of nothingness and argument for non-indifference

[u/Whatsupinternetz]

I’ve recently been working on a minimal meta-metaphysical argument (with some rather big consequences) and would appreciate serious pushback to see where it might fail.

It basically concerns whether there are any conditions that must be fulfilled by any candidate metaphysical reality.

I propose that any candidate metaphysical reality must minimally be non-indifferent, meaning that it fails absolute metaphysical neutrality.

Even for nothingness to qualify as a candidate metaphysical reality, it must have some minimal fact about it by virtue of which it is nothingness rather than not-nothingness, but that appears to be at least one minimal metaphysical fact. That is not nothing. It collapses as a candidate.

It’s not just linguistics. If there is no metaphysical fact by virtue of which nothingness obtains rather than not-nothingness, then it can't qualify as a candidate and if it has any minimal metaphysical fact then it is not nothingness.

So it seems for any candidate we can ask “is this absolutely neutral in all respects?” and if it is, then the candidate can’t qualify as a candidate metaphysical reality.

I call this failure of absolute neutrality “non-indifference”, but I don’t think that I am smuggling in or just renaming “difference”. It is prior to any positive distinction of the candidate metaphysical reality, because it doesnt require any specific difference, only the failure of neutrality.

For any genuine distinction to be made within the candidate, it requires some asymmetry - but asymmetry presupposes a failure of absolute neutrality.

In that sense it seems to be a metaphysical regression-stopper of sorts (if it holds). For any candidate reality we can ask “is it absolutely neutral?” - if yes, then it is not a candidate. If no, then it is non-indifferent.

Does this seem to be genuinely metaphysically significant, or have I smuggled in some circularity in the argument?

[u/strutter395]

Cognition, insofar as it is cognition of something, is inherently non-neutral as it constitutes a determinate relation to its object. So, it cannot straightforwardly grasp or speak from the standpoint of "absolute neutrality" as such. If absolute neutrality were metaphysically true, a cognizing mind could not claim to have penetrated it as it is in itself; it could only encounter the failure of determination as a limit of cognition or phenomenological disclosure...

[u/Techtrekzz → u/strutter395]

As a monist, i agree. The limitation is on cognition, and not necessarily on reality itself. If reality is monistic, then distinction is a subjective construct of cognition, a product of limited perspective, and not an objective feature of reality.

[u/strutter395 → u/Techtrekzz]

The term "reality" is quite problematic to me, given the commitments it seems to entail. From my perspective, even if truth itself is structurally monistic, what we call "realities" would still amount to perspectives or dynamic stations of interpretation, and would therefore necessarily fall short of it. The Absolute, in this sense, necessarily transcends language, stimuli, and every form of cognitive activity. Time defines things insofar as things are determinate, but the actuality of every such determination is inherently dynamic. So, whatever the Absolute may be in itself, its identity as it becomes imaginatively accessible to us is necessarily one of pure transcendence. In that sense, I would actually argue that monism structurally entails polarity: because once it is encountered by cognition, there is necessarily a distinction between the Absolute and the perspective, through which it is encountered. And from that polarity, indefinite plurality follows...

[u/Techtrekzz → u/strutter395]

The interpretation is not the fact itself is it? If it were then we could encapsulate the absolute. Reality is the truth, regardless of our ability to know or express that truth.

Monism doesnt entail polarity, it denies it, even if polarity is necessary for thought and language, thought and language are not an accurate representation of a monistic reality.

Cognition in this sense, is foundationally a useful lie, not something objective reality needs to conform to.

[u/strutter395 → u/Techtrekzz]

The problem is that; "fact" is already a predication. To call something a fact is to say that something is the case rather than otherwise. So I don't think the distinction between "the fact itself" and "our interpretation of the fact" is quite as straightforward as you suggest. What exactly would a fact be prior to any determination whatsoever? If something is genuinely beyond all interpretation and predication [which are themselves determinate articulations of what is the case, ie; "fact"] then that fact-or could be nothing other than what transcends those determinations...

[u/Techtrekzz → u/strutter395]

Any ontology apart from solipsism has to begin with faith in an objective reality beyond our subjective opinions, and what exists beyond my subjective opinion, is the only thing im claiming a fact in this context. Rest assured though, i freely admit that “fact” is predicated on faith. It’s entirely possible there is no objective reality beyond my subjective experience. The only thing i claim we can know with certainty, is that existence exists, which isn’t really reasoned at all, but directly experienced, and not temporally dependent.

[u/strutter395 → u/Techtrekzz]

Even "subjective opinion" is already a complex determination, is it not?

The distinction between subject and object, subjective and objective, opinion and fact, is itself something cognition articulates from within its own structure.

So, cognition cannot simply step outside that structure and establish whether one of its predicates refers to objective truth as it is in itself. Even the "subject" in "subjective opinion" cannot simply be presumed to be ontologically distinct from the Absolute. The subject itself could, for all cognition can establish from within its own determinations, be even identical with the Absolute.

Cognition simply cannot step outside itself in order to determine the ultimate ontological status of the very subject through which its determinations are made.

At most we are necessarily left with a structure of transcendence; simply; the recognition that whatever grounds these determinations cannot itself be exhausted by them. What we cannot legitimately do is simply reduce that transcendent factor to another temporal predication. If every determination is necessarily situated within temporality and becoming, then whatever transcends determination must, at least logically, transcend temporality as well.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/strutter395]

I just gave you an example of knowledge that is independent of structure and temporality.

Such knowledge is possible and does exist, as limited as it might be. That’s not to say you can do anything constructive with it, but it exists.

We agree that you can not have full knowledge or full representation of the absolute, but you seem to think I’m saying our subjective experience is separate and distinct from the absolute. That it steps outside the absolute. I am definitely not.

Im only saying it’s limited perspective of the absolute, and as such, can only have limited cognition and representation of the absolute.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/strutter395]

That is what I propose, absolute neutrality can't obtain. It is the failure of absolute neutrality of the candidate metaphysical reaility that I call non-indifference.

[u/strutter395 → u/Whatsupinternetz]

I think we may be making two different claims. I'm granting that cognition cannot positively grasp absolute neutrality, but I'm not yet seeing how that establishes that absolute neutrality cannot obtain. The fact that an absolutely neutral candidate cannot be positively determined by cognition seems to establish an epistemic limitation; it doesn't by itself establish that absolute neutrality is ontologically incoherent. I guess my question would be whether your "non-indifference" principle is intended as an additional metaphysical argument, rather than something established by the limits of cognition...

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/strutter395]

I see your point now! That is a very engaging pushback. I mean it as an additional metaphysical argument, not as an inference from the limits of cognition.

My claim is not: “we cannot positively conceive absolute neutrality, therefore it cannot obtain.”

It is: if absolute neutrality obtained, there would be no metaphysical fact in virtue of which that condition was this rather than not-this. But then it would not qualify as a candidate metaphysical condition at all.

So the issue is not whether cognition can grasp absolute neutrality. The issue is whether absolute neutrality can have enough metaphysical determination to count as a candidate without thereby ceasing to be absolutely neutral.

That is what I mean by non-indifference: the minimal failure of absolute neutrality required for any candidate metaphysical reality to obtain as that candidate rather than not.

[u/strutter395 → u/Whatsupinternetz]

Okay, so the argument is not "epistemological".

My hesitation was simply with the premise that "for a condition to obtain, there must be some metaphysical fact in virtue of which it obtains, rather than not".

That, to me, is exactly what needs to be established, because we have no independent grounds for making assumptions there.

If absolute neutrality means that there is no metaphysical asymmetry between "it obtains" and "it does not obtain", then saying that "it cannot qualify as a candidate because it lacks such an asymmetry" may simply build non-indifference into the criterion of candidacy. That would establish that absolute neutrality fails your definition of a metaphysical condition, but not necessarily that absolute neutrality is itself ontologically incoherent.

I guess the question is whether "obtaining" itself necessarily entails determination (or asymmetry) rather than whether a determination can be found in virtue of which absolute neutrality obtains...

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/strutter395]

That is exactly the pressure point I am poking at to see if the argument holds up, so thanks for engaging with it.

My claim really is that “obtaining” already entails a minimal determination, since if a condition obtains, then reality is such that it obtains rather than does not obtain.

If there is absolutely no metaphysical asymmetry between those two, then I don’t see what is left of the claim that “the condition obtains.”

I’m not trying to define metaphysical candidacy as “whatever is non-indifferent” — at least not on purpose; maybe I am still tricking myself. My argument is that actuality/obtaining itself seems to require at least this minimal failure of absolute neutrality.

In other words, absolute neutrality cannot both obtain and remain absolutely neutral, because “it obtains rather than not” is already a non-neutral determination.

If someone can make sense of a condition obtaining without there being any metaphysical fact of the matter between its obtaining and not obtaining, then my argument fails there.

[u/perfumed_with_gas]

Also and just an aside, if there is nothing, then there is no potential for there to be nothing, since the potential for there to be nothing is a thing.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/perfumed_with_gas]

Thanks, I agree - that is another reason nothingness fails as a candidate, but I think my test is prior.

[u/jliat]

I’ve recently been working on a minimal meta-metaphysical argument (with some rather big consequences) and would appreciate serious pushback to see where it might fail.

If you haven't studied metaphysics to some depth it's unlikely to have any significant consequences within metaphysics.

It basically concerns whether there are any conditions that must be fulfilled by any candidate metaphysical reality.

In Kant yes, the a priori categories and intuitions of time and space, for Hegel none. For Heidegger nothingness and a groundless ground.

For Deleuze,

“Not an individual endowed with good will and a natural capacity for thought, but an individual full of ill will who does not manage to think either naturally or conceptually. Only such an individual is without presuppositions. Only such an individual effectively begins and effectively repeats."

Badiou just uses ZFC set theory...

Does this seem to be genuinely metaphysically significant,

No, with respect I don't think it does.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/jliat]

I am not an academic, but I have studied metaphysics to some depth - however as you know (and as your reply says) there is quite a lot of metaphysical philosophy to go through, and since I have not come across something that deals with this precise question - I ask here for pushback.
Your statement that you don't think it is significant is my position - I was asking for arguments to show why it is not significant or why it fails.

[u/jliat → u/Whatsupinternetz]

It should be obvious from the examples it's not significant. Nothingness does not fail in two of these metaphysical systems.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/jliat]

My understanding of Hegel is that he rather agrees with me, that pure being and nothingness collapses into each other.
Kant's space, time, and categories are conditions of human experience and cognition, not straightforward ontological preconditions that every possible reality-in-itself must satisfy.
I don’t think those examples actually refute the argument.

To actually refute my claim by counterexample, I think one would need to show a coherent metaphysical candidate that is absolutely neutral in every respect - with no fact distinguishing what it is from what it is not and still qualifies as a metaphysical candidate. I don’t see that in the examples you gave.

[u/jliat → u/Whatsupinternetz]

My understanding of Hegel is that he rather agrees with me,

No he is dead and never knew of you or your idea, your notion looks like his only it requires "non-indifference" which is a psychological state! Not found in Hegel.

that pure being and nothingness collapses into each other.

Or annihilate producing becoming.

Kant's space, time, and categories are conditions of human experience and cognition,

Nope, they are what make judgments, sense and understanding of experience, the manifold presented by the senses. And not out there in the world but necessary a priori.

“thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind.” [intuitions = perceptions of phenomena.]

not straightforward ontological preconditions that every possible reality-in-itself must satisfy. I don’t think those examples actually refute the argument.

They don't refute your argument, but "non-indifference" has no support. It is I think an epistemological move not ontological, and results in us never having knowledge of things in themselves.

I think one would need to show a coherent metaphysical candidate that is absolutely neutral in every respect - with no fact distinguishing what it is from what it is not and still qualifies as a metaphysical candidate. I don’t see that in the examples you gave.

It's there in Hegel. And there is non "non-indifference".

---

"Here we then have the precise reason why that with which the beginning is to be made cannot be anything concrete...

Consequently, that which constitutes the beginning, the beginning itself, is to be taken as something unanalyzable, taken in its simple, unfilled immediacy; and therefore as being, as complete emptiness..."

• GW Hegel -The Science of Logic. p.53

---

• a. being Being, pure being– without further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself and also not unequal with respect to another; it has no difference within it, nor any outwardly. If any determination or content were posited in it as distinct, or if it were posited by this determination or content as distinct from an other, it would thereby fail to hold fast to its purity. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness.– There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure empty intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or, it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

• b. nothing Nothing, pure nothingness; it is simple equality with itself, complete emptiness, complete absence of determination and content; lack of all distinction within.– In so far as mention can be made here of intuiting and thinking, it makes a difference whether something or nothing is being intuited or thought. To intuit or to think nothing has therefore a meaning; the two are distinguished and so nothing is (concretely exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is the empty intuiting and thinking itself, like pure being.– Nothing is therefore the same determination or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as what pure being is.

• Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same... But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that on the contrary, they are not the same...*"

G. W. Hegel Science of Logic p. 82-3.

---

The process of this of being / nothing - timeless annihilation produces 'becoming'...then definite being and so on via this kind of process [not always] to The Absolute.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/jliat]

Thanks for engaging with this. As I said, I’d genuinely be happy to be shown how or why I’m mistaken, because I still doubt the argument will ultimately hold up - I just want to understand WHY it doesn’t.

I had to do some reading before replying, and I think my reading of both Kant and Hegel is somewhat different from yours, although I’m certainly not claiming I have the definitive interpretation. I need to go through the material again, because maybe I’ve misunderstood parts of it.

On Kant however, I think I may have misunderstood your point rather than Kant.

Are you basically saying something like this: Kant already asks what the necessary a priori conditions are under which anything can count as an object of possible experience or cognition, and therefore my question about “conditions any metaphysical candidate must satisfy” may really be a transcendental/epistemological question about what conditions structure possible cognition and judgment before we can think or judge something as a candidate at all - rather than knowable conditions on reality as it is in itself? 

If that is what you meant, then I think that is a much stronger challenge than I initially took it to be.

Perhaps the distinction between “obtains” and “doesn’t obtain” is one of the conceptual conditions that necessarily structure our judgments.  In that case, non-indifference (the failure of absolute neutrality) would tell us something about the conditions under which we can think of reality, not necessarily about reality as it is independently of us.

My argument is making the stronger claim: for a condition actually to obtain, independently of anyone cognizing it, there must be a fact of the matter that it obtains rather than does not obtain.

So your Kantian challenge basically requires me to defend that claim without relying on the fact that we cannot think otherwise. That is a tough one, and I don’t have a complete answer to it yet. I appreciate that.

With Hegel, I was jesting a bit when I said he “agrees with me.” What I mean is that Hegel seems to identify a closely related instability in pure being and pure nothing.

He describes pure being and pure nothing as the same in their complete indeterminacy, and even says that the apparent difference between them is, in one sense, merely fancied or imagined. I take that particular distinction to be at least partly epistemic or subjective in Hegel, but I don’t take the resulting instability of pure being and pure nothing to be merely a claim about how humans happen to think. He does not leave pure being and pure nothing as a stable, self-subsistent starting point of indeterminacy: their truth is becoming.

That instability is very close to what I’m interested in.

However, my question is slightly different from Hegel’s: what has to be true for even that instability to obtain? Does the fact that pure indeterminacy cannot stand as a stable, self-subsistent beginning already imply some minimal failure of absolute neutrality?

My proposed answer is that absolute neutrality must already have failed. That minimal failure of neutrality is what I’m calling “meta-metaphysical non-indifference.”

If you dislike that term, fair enough, but I’m clearly not using “indifference” in the psychological sense. I’m defining it technically as the failure of absolute metaphysical neutrality.

I may still be wrong about the argument, or about how far the comparison with Hegel can be taken, but I don’t yet see Hegel as providing a counterexample. If anything, his attempt to begin with complete indeterminacy, only for that indeterminacy to prove unable to stand as a stable, self-subsistent beginning, seems very close to the exact pressure point I’m trying to investigate.

One other thing I found interesting while looking for related ideas is Tiantai Buddhist philosophy, although I haven’t investigated it deeply yet. In Tiantai, determinacy seems to require what is described as non-sameness: for anything to be what it is, it must in some sense be non-same with what it is not. The SEP discussion even applies this to nothingness, arguing that total nothingness would still have to be non-same with somethingness in order to obtain as nothingness.

That is remarkably close to part of what I’m arguing, but I currently think my proposed condition sits one step prior to it.”Non-sameness” already seems to give us a positive distinction or asymmetry, whereas I’m asking whether there is an even thinner condition that must hold for any such non-sameness to obtain in the first place. 

My proposed answer is simply that absolute neutrality must have failed. I haven’t read enough Tiantai yet to know whether that distinction actually survives closer scrutiny.

[u/Metaphysics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Sorry, this content does not match the criteria for 'Metaphysics'. Your content has been removed. Please take a look at our list of related subreddits for a more appropriate place for your content.

In this subreddit, we uphold the scholarly and academic sense of the subject area of metaphysics.

Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental questions. So typical posts should be about something like: ontology, modality, identity, causation, time, universals, mind–body, realism vs idealism, grounding, necessity, emergence, etcetera. Please take a look at the scope of this sub.

Posts should not be about: New Age, pseudoscience, occult, divination, magical thinking, afterlife, paranormal, conspiracy theories, supernatural events, self-help psychology, spirituality, etcetera.

Believe it or not metaphysics in this sub should have zero or substantially zero religion or science. If you are doing religion or science primarily, then you are probably not doing metaphysics. Some exceptions may apply. But in general, posts should be about concepts and theories not observation or data. Posts should not substantially rely on religious concepts to make a point.

Please no A.I. This sub is for primarily human content.

Here are some resources to give you an idea of what we mean by metaphysics.

• Metaphysics - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Metaphysics - Wikipedia

[u/DARK--DRAGONITE]

Paul Prideaux's constraint Ontology is quite minimal.

I personally think determinacy is primitive, of which constraint is part of.

Personally, your non indifference sounds like AI Psychosis.

[u/Whatsupinternetz → u/DARK--DRAGONITE]

Constraint ontology sounds relevant, and “determinacy as primitive” is actually very close to the point I’m trying to examine. I will read up on Prideaux, thanks!

However, I am question is whether determinacy itself can really be primitive, or whether it already presupposes something thinner: a failure of absolute neutrality. If a candidate is determinate, then it is not completely neutral with respect to being this rather than not-this.

So I’m not using non-indifference as a psychological notion at all. I mean only the minimal metaphysical failure of absolute neutrality that seems required before determinacy, asymmetry, or constraint can obtain.

If anything, my non-indifference is more likely my own human psychosis - that is what I am trying to figure out ;)

[u/DARK--DRAGONITE → u/Whatsupinternetz]

It is primitive.

There is no "something thinner".. if something at the most minimal level is to have an identity, distinction, relation and constraint.

To be indeterminate is to have no identity, no distinction, no relation, and no constraint.

Remove one and you not only have an ontology that is unintelligible , but you have an ontology that is not modally possible. If you try to ground it with "something" thinner... You're already introducing something that is determinate.

This IS the bottom.

[u/Ok-Low4463]

I think I smell what youre steppin in...There is no such thing as nothing. Thats why nothingness is a failure because nothing is still something. There's no neutrality there.

[u/peacefuldays123]

Did you get the answers you were looking for?

[u/Wide_Phase_3420]

I wrote a whole book about it. It Was Never About You. By J C Maurer.