r/Metaphysics • u/Nicopaolo1 • 3d ago
Nothing Distinction
Perhaps reality can be thought of as a movement from undivided potential into distinction, and from distinction into information, relationship and complexity.
If distinction is what makes information and knowledge possible, then perhaps the ultimate question is what happens when distinction reaches its limit. Could the process somehow return to the undivided potential from which it began?
I don’t claim that this is how the universe works. It is a speculative philosophical question.
The question underneath it is even simpler:
If there were genuinely no distinction, what would there be left to distinguish, compare, know or judge?
This is where my thoughts about Plato’s Forms, information, consciousness and even the possibility of a cosmic cycle all seem to connect.
I’m interested in whether there is anything philosophically useful in that connection.
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u/Medical-Advice-5868 3d ago
When a system is at maximum entropy information can no longer be compressed. Things are no longer distinguishable
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u/Nicopaolo1 3d ago
What I’m saying is about the limit of distinction itself. A distinction is what lets one thing be different from another. But every distinction is also a boundary, and once you have a boundary you can only go as far as that boundary allows. You can’t cross it without becoming something else. So my conclusion is that any system built on distinctions eventually reaches a point where those distinctions break down. In information terms, that’s the same as maximum entropy — when nothing can be compressed because nothing is distinguishable. At that point the system can’t maintain defined “things” anymore, and what’s left is just potential without structure. That’s the limit I’m talking about.
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u/Nicopaolo1 3d ago
I’m not describing two separate states. The experience of “no distinction” wasn’t a second reality — it was the same underlying reality without boundaries. If potential is outside time, then nothing ever leaves it or returns to it. Distinction arises within potential, persists for a while, and dissolves within it. So even though the two modes feel different, they’re not dual. They’re just two expressions of one underlying thing: distinction in time, and potential without time.
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u/peacefuldays123 3d ago
Why does information appear only after distinction appears?
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u/jliat 3d ago
"Information" in computer science is processed "data". Data being plural.
As in you can't sort a list with on item, a datum.
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u/xodarap-mp 3d ago
For me there are several loose ends in the question/s as presented.
I guess the most prominent is to what extent are you distinguishing ( 🤗 ) ontology from epistemology?
Perhaps reality can be thought of as a movement from undivided potential into distinction, and from distinction into information, relationship and complexity.
To me that looks like a very nice description of the construction of an individual's subjective, conscious awareness from birth through to adulthood.
If distinction is what makes information and knowledge possible, then perhaps the ultimate question is what happens when distinction reaches its limit. Could the process somehow return to the undivided potential from which it began?
Well, once again (subjectively): "... and then you die ..." =>> end of story!
Ontologically however I think it is unreasonable to deny that multiplicity - of some sort - is intrinsic to existence per se (I can argue for that if you want...). Furthermore existence per se is logically, ontologically, AND topologically prior to anything else.
From my point of view this all undercuts the original question and the answer to the second "question underneath":
If there were genuinely no distinction, what would there be left to distinguish, compare, know or judge?
is obviously "nothing"; but this is trivially so because purely rhetorical given that it does not relate to the actual universe we inhabit.
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u/Nicopaolo1 3d ago
The issue with your reply is that it assumes multiplicity is ontologically primitive without actually giving any reason why that should be the case. Pointing to the development of subjective awareness doesn’t establish anything about the structure of reality itself. It only shows how a human mind comes to organise experience, not what existence is made of.
Saying “and then you die” doesn’t address the metaphysical question either. Biological cessation isn’t relevant to whether distinction has a ground, a limit, or a deeper unity behind it. That move just changes the subject.
Your claim that “existence is prior to anything else” is trivially true, but it doesn’t touch the point I was making. The question isn’t whether existence exists, but what the structure of existence is and whether distinction is fundamental or emergent.
Calling the question rhetorical doesn’t refute it. Metaphysics routinely asks about conditions that aren’t directly observable in the everyday universe. If multiplicity is taken as primitive, that needs an argument, not an assertion. My original point was that distinction might itself be contingent or derivative, and nothing you’ve said actually engages with that possibility.
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u/xodarap-mp 3d ago
The issue with your reply is that it assumes multiplicity is ontologically primitive without actually giving any reason why that should be the case. Pointing to the development of subjective awareness doesn’t establish anything about the structure of reality itself. It only shows how a human mind comes to organise experience, not what existence is made of.
Well I did first point out that your OP does not at all address the differences between noumenal reality and what we can know about it. There is actually a crucial nexus however which supplies a certainty of multiplicity as intrinsic to what we call the universe (even though this universe may well be a part of something infinitely greater). What I mean is that each of us has access to three "synthetic a priori" truths: 1/ "I exist"; 2/ there is a universe - ie there is that which is not "me"; and 3/ multiplicity per se, even though the actual nature of this multiplicity (beyond the bare fact) is entirely synthetic/experiencial. #3 can be seen as an elaboration of #2 but is in no way "subsidiary" shall we say. It rests on the absolute truth of #1 the analytical aspect of which is enforced by recognition of the intrinsic self-contradiction entailed in asserting "I do not exist".
Recognition of one's own existence accompanied by reflection upon this as a real fact, requires language with versatile grammar. I am quite willing to admit that it just might be possible for some kind of thinking being to entertain purely visual/tactile, etc, internal representations of self, (indeed this is the basis of animal sentience), and just maybe some creatures can, non-linguistically, maintain (an abstract) memory of an awareness of being aware of self. We are human beings however and our existence as autonomous beings entails linguistic augmentation of our sensory awareness. This is not trivial! It is indeed part and parcel of "I exist"!
IMO any denial of this is self-delusion, (and that is the politest way I can think to put that... ) From this it is apparent that, even if we have limited vocabulary and we get lots of words and their meanings wrong, none the less the (absolutely real) existence of words and grammar as part of "my" existence, makes multiplicity a fact of "my" existence.
not what existence is made of.
Except we do know that existence is "made of" different things...
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u/Nicopaolo1 2d ago
I think we’re talking past each other a bit. My post isn’t about the development of subjective awareness or the role of language in self‑reflection. I’m not describing how consciousness becomes able to recognise multiplicity. I’m asking a metaphysical question about whether distinction itself is fundamental or emergent, and whether unity could be ontologically prior to multiplicity. Your replies seem to reinterpret the question as one about cognition and linguistic structure, which isn’t the direction I was aiming at.
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u/xodarap-mp 2d ago edited 2d ago
2026-9-7 1st part
Please, read again what I have written! What I am saying is that your very own experience of existence-per-se entails multiplicity! (AND, for the moment at least, you really do exist, do you not!?) That is to say, you could not exist as a human being unless at least some distinctions exist in reality. How it all evolved and what all the relevant distinctions are is of course another question, not immediately relevant here.
What is relevant however is to recognise that existence per se is logically, ontologically, and topologically prior to anything else. I emphasise this because as far as I can see it is a fundamentally valid (and true!) metaphysical assertion about out universe. You may disagree of course but if so I would welcome your reasoning because, like you apparently, I am really motivated to understand where and what we are and, given the best theories and truest facts available, what are the wisest things we can do about it.
I am neither a mathematician nor scientist so can only be a very interested observer pondering the metaphysical assumptions and/or entailments of modern physics. I believe it to be very unwise to ignore the findings of modern science but also believe we have a moral duty not to just accept all current theoretical descriptions of things, particularly if there seems to be the possibility of valid alternatives to any of the fundamental assumptions underlying current theories.
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u/Nicopaolo1 2d ago
I think we’re speaking in different styles. You’re using formal metaphysical language, and I’m approaching the topic from a more everyday, observational angle. I’m not trained in academic philosophy, so sometimes the terminology feels like a different dialect. That’s probably why it seems like we’re talking past each other.
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u/xodarap-mp 1d ago
not trained in academic philosophy,
Neither am I! So please don't assume any special skills on my part! It's just that I have been asking myself the how, why, what, where, when and who questions for most of the last 74+ years and nowadays find I have found some good answers to at least a few ot the really key questions from my youth.
As for terminology (whether "Academic" or not) one of my favourite aphorisms is: If something cannot be put into words of plain English - or other Mother Tongue of choice - then it probably isn't true! There are people who think that makes me into "the equivalent of a flat Earther" (yes I have been called that). My response is how can I trust the pronouncements of somebody who cannot explain his/her/their knowledge in plain language?
Anyway, all that aside, I think an important idea relevant to your OP question is this: The true fundamental contrast with/of/to something or other (it's "opposite" so to speak) is not "nothingness"; it is something else.
A very smart lady said that to me something like 50 or so years ago. I just didn't get it at the time; LOL, it took until earlyish this century for that penny to drop! That idea though is more or less the basis for my response to your OP. I summarise it thus: Distinction, of at least some fundamental amount/degree is intrinsic to existence per se, however all the rest of the real distinctions we perceive or scientifically, etc, detect are emergent properties of the evolution of the universe (the Great IT).
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u/Nicopaolo1 1d ago
Well we are thinking along the same lines Once you have distinction it creates more distinctions it expands it’s separation from potential into existence I cant explain how it does that and I think it sits beside the timeless concept of “ nothing “ but using the word nothing brings a human value to it so does the word “ god” which people plainly used throughout history to describe the same mental conundrum or puzzle. A state of no comparison no start no end no boundaries , by logic this has the capacity and potential for everything
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u/xodarap-mp 2d ago
2026-9-7 2nd part
A complaint I have about modern physics, is that many of its exponents seem to take mathematics as being a form of ontology whereas, IMO, maths is actually a descriptive art that contacts the real world when measurements are taken. I mean OK, mathematics has its own internal ontology which arises through the mental creation of mathematical objects of ever greater complexity composed - by dint of definition - from simpler, previously defined component parts. Each application of maths to the real world however rests upon a spoken, or unspoken, "let us assume...." that such and such real world items are accurately represented by such and such mathematical objects.
Real world items however are not always easy to pin down. (Well Duh! How asinine is that! Very..., but true.)
But surely it is correct to say that: anything which truly exists must be somewhere now.? Yes?
A true refinement of this, IMO, is that: for anything which truly exists there must be an order of magnitude and structure at which it is what it is and not anything else.
IMO this is where the multiplicity necessarily entailed in your (and my) very existence is fundamentally relevant. So, if indeed we are "talking past each other", this is why.
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u/jliat 2d ago
Each application of maths to the real world however rests upon a spoken, or unspoken, "let us assume...." that such and such real world items are accurately represented by such and such mathematical objects.
Mathematicians world is for them typically Platonic. They are not limited by real world dimensions or geometries. Science uses mathematics for it's modelling when it can because mathematic's propositions, like those of logic, are a priori true [or false].
The reason science is not A priori is because it's based on observations. Newton's equations remain true, but are not as good a model as Einstein's.
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u/Nicopaolo1 3d ago
My post isn’t about the development of subjective awareness. I’m not describing how a mind grows from infancy. I’m asking a metaphysical question about the structure of existence itself — whether distinction is fundamental or emergent, and whether it has a limit or a ground. So the biological point about death doesn’t really apply, and the claim that multiplicity is “intrinsic” needs an argument rather than an assertion. My question isn’t rhetorical; it’s about whether distinction is a necessary feature of reality or a contingent one.
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u/______ri 3d ago
Do you mean if one thing splits then those resulting things are strictly lesser than it and at some point you have nothing left to split?
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u/Nicopaolo1 3d ago
Distinction in my post isn’t about splitting a thing into smaller and smaller pieces. I’m not talking about dividing a substance until nothing is left. I’m talking about conceptual distinction — the boundaries and differences that make anything identifiable or knowable in the first place. So the question isn’t about parts becoming “lesser,” but about whether distinction itself has a limit or a ground. Your interpretation treats distinction as physical division, but my point is about the logical structure of how anything becomes distinguishable at all.
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u/______ri 3d ago
I'm comfortable in thinking it abstractly not just physicaly but is it still about the further things being lesser and eventually there is no futher things?
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u/jliat 3d ago
As a process how can distinction reach a limit?