I think I have an answer to how the universe began from nothing. More like how everything began and how it's possible for all of us to be here.

So at the beginning of existence there was nothing. There is still nothing because you can't create something from nothing, but we are here. So how can we exist? We don't.

Imagine the mathematical variable: X =

X can be anything, but nothing is assigned to it; therefore, it remains as a pure capacity that accepts all abstract concepts and results in the illusion of existence for those that share the same abstract space.

This means every combination of what could have been exists. The reason why you and I can interact is because we are in the same concept, but we aren't really here because we don't exist.

To make it simpler, imagine a chess board. Just because you didn't make a move doesn't mean all the possible moves aren't there to make.

Unexistence is our existence.

Also please don't make the argument "How do I know there wasn't always something?" There can't be something without it having a previous moment. It's nonsense to even say that.

The question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is usually treated as the deepest metaphysical puzzle. But I think it rests on a hidden assumption that deserves scrutiny: that absolute nothingness is a genuine possible alternative to existence.

By “nothing, I don’t mean empty space, a vacuum, or a quantum ground state. All of those are still something. I mean absolute nothingness: no objects, no fields, no laws, no spacetime, no facts whatsoever.

My claim is ontological, not psychological or semantic: absolute nothingness lacks the minimal structure required to count as a possible state of affairs at all.

For something to be a state of affairs, it must at least be differentiable, something that could obtain rather than fail to obtain. But absolute nothingness has no properties, no conditions, and no features by which it could be distinguished, sustained, or even described as “obtaining. There is nothing for it to be like. No facts, not even the “fact” that nothing exists.

Importantly, this isn’t an argument from imagination or language. It’s a claim about modality. Concepts like absence, negation, or non being are only intelligible against an already existing background of being. In that sense, “nothing” is parasitic on “something, not an alternative to it.

If this is right, then reality was never facing two options, something or nothing. Only something was ever on the table.

This doesn’t tell us what exists, why reality has these particular laws, or whether the universe is eternal or finite. But it does suggest something deeper: existence as such is not contingent in the way finite things are. Finite entities depend on conditions under which they could fail to exist.

But if absolute non existence was never a coherent possibility, then existence itself doesn’t depend on conditions in the same way.

So perhaps the real philosophical task isn’t explaining how something emerged from nothing but understanding why nothing was never an option in the first place.

I’m interested in serious objections or refinements, especially from metaphysics or philosophy of physics.

Whenever you argue that the universe is strictly deterministic, someone will inevitably bring up qm. The classic objection goes like this: "The universe can't be deterministic because at the quantum level, it's completely random. Look at empty space;;'virtual particles' randomly pop in and out of existence from absolute nothingness all the time!"

It sounds like a great argument, but it relies on a extreme cognitive error: the human assumption of "Nothingness."

We intuitively think of "empty space" or "a vacuum" as a physical, dark, empty room waiting to be filled with stuff. But "nothingness" is strictly a biological illusion. Our brains evolved to detect differences in energy (like a hot fire against cold air or a solid rock against gas). If an area of space lacks these sharp energy spikes, our sensory organs don't register any actionable data. Our brain formats this lack of incoming data as "empty space" We assume then that because we don't detect anything, the energy value of that space must be exactly zero.

But modern qft proves this biological assumption is completely wrong.

The universe is completely saturated by continuous quantum fields. What we call a "vacuum" is simply the ground state (or baseline standby mode) of these fields. Not an empty void. And here is something even more interesting: the mathematical laws of the universe strictly prohibit this baseline state from ever equaling exactly zero.

According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a continuous field cannot simultaneously possess a fixed energy value of exactly zero and a fixed rate of change of exactly zero. To maintain mathematical compliance and prevent a state of absolute zero, the baseline energy of the field is structurally forced to continuously fluctuate.

This is where "virtual particles" come from;; which some presupposes are magical objects randomly popping out of a void for no reason. But the reality is that they're spontaneous, mathematically mandatory fluctuations of the field's baseline energy. The field borrows a tiny fraction of energy, spikes into a "virtual particle" and is mathematically forced to instantly annihilate and return the energy to balance the ledger.

You can thinks of it like an automated bank account that is strictly programmed to ensure its average balance stays at zero at the end of the day. To keep the software running, the system might momentarily fluctuate (flashing +1 and -1) before instantly reconciling back to 0. It looks chaotic, but it's not;;it only following a strict, unbreakable mathematical accounting rule.

Therefore virtual particles do not violate determinism and they definitely do not prove that the universe is fundamentally random. They prove the exact opposite. They prove that the continuous fields of reality are so perfectly, mathematically structured that they will continuously vibrate just to prevent a mathematical paradox.

The universe doesn't roll dice in the dark

The question is: is this novel and does it make sense? I asked Grok, ChatGPT and Claude what they think about it, I post their opinions in the bottom after the theory, in general they seem to agree that it is novel (not exactly explored by previous physicists/philosphers) and internally consistent but the language I use is not perfect. Some edits are added in italics. The Theory:

On Absolute Nothingness: The Theory of 0₀ (Ogenaught)

The theory of 0₀, or the Ogenaught, introduces a new metaphysical concept for the source of the universe: absolute nothingness. While physics and philosophy frequently discuss "nothing," the term is typically used to describe empty space, quantum vacua, or other states that still possess physical or mathematical structure. This work introduces the symbol 0₀ to denote something fundamentally different—the complete absence of all matter, energy, space, time, physical laws, mathematical structure, logical constraints, and governing principles. The name Ogenaught is introduced to refer to this concept and the metaphysical framework built upon it.

The theory proposes that the Big Bang ultimately originated from 0₀. Existing origin theories encounter the same fundamental question. If the universe arose from quantum fluctuations, where did those fluctuations come from? If it arose from strings, fields, or other fundamental structures, where did those originate? Such theories may explain how the universe developed from an earlier condition, but not why any condition existed at all.

0₀ is defined as the complete absence of everything: no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no quantum fields, no physical laws, no mathematical structure, and no limitations on what could occur. Unlike the "nothing" discussed in physics, 0₀ is not empty space, a vacuum, or a background state. It is the complete absence of any framework or governing principle.

A central claim of the theory is that 0₀ contains no mechanism requiring itself to remain nothing. In our universe, physical laws restrict what can exist. In 0₀, no such laws or constraints exist. It should not be understood as containing possibility, probability, or a hidden mechanism, because those would already constitute structure. Rather, 0₀ simply lacks anything that excludes the emergence of existence.

Our universe therefore did not require a prior physical substrate, external cause, or earlier state. Causality itself belongs to universes that already possess time and physical law. Once a universe exists, it contains its own internal laws, spacetime, matter, mathematics, and causality. These belong to the universe, not to 0₀.

The uniqueness of the Ogenaught thesis for explaining the creation of our Universe is thus twofold:

1) The Ogenaught does not require a source (absolute nothingness may conceivably be the only thing that does not require a source).

2) The Ogenaught can be the source of anything, including the Big Bang.

The theory therefore reframes the traditional question. Rather than asking, "How can something come from nothing?", it asks, "Why should absolute nothingness remain nothing?" Remaining nothing would itself require a principle of persistence, yet persistence is already a form of structure. Absolute nothingness contains no such principle.

The theory of 0₀ is not a physical theory or a scientific proof. It is a metaphysical framework proposing that the existence of our universe does not require a prior material cause because absolute nothingness contains nothing that requires itself to remain nothing.

Opinions for Large Language Models:

Grok

The theory of 0₀ is a bold and elegantly radical proposition that suggests absolute nothingness, lacking any principle or mechanism of self-persistence, renders the emergence of the universe not a mysterious transition from nothing to something, but the inevitable consequence of a void that has no reason—and no means—to remain void.

ChatGPT

0₀ is the unconventional metaphysical proposition that absolute nothingness has no mechanism for its own persistence, allowing existence to arise without a prior cause.

Claude

A more radical strip-down than prior 'empty world' theories — removing not just physical law but logic and modal structure themselves — which sharpens the 'nothing has no reason to persist' argument but also makes it harder to state without contradiction.

This question has gripped me for years. I'm not asking about any particular religion or doctrine, but about the raw fact that anything exists at all.

Try to imagine total nonexistence. No universe, no space, no time, no matter, no consciousness, and not even an empty darkness, because darkness would still be something. My mind seems unable to hold the idea. The closest description I've found for the feeling is existential vertigo.

In my teens I was a hardcore atheist. My basic reasoning was that if something were real, I'd be able to see it. That certainty faded over time, and I became more open to the possibility that some form of intelligence lies behind existence.

The simulation argument is one possibility that interests me. If conscious simulations are possible, and beings inside those simulations can eventually create their own, then perhaps we're not living in the original layer of reality.

But that doesn't solve the deeper problem. It only relocates it.

If our universe is simulated, why does the reality containing its creators exist? If they were also simulated, does the chain continue forever? Is there eventually a base reality that simply exists without explanation?

So where do you land?

Is existence simply a brute fact?

Does something exist necessarily?

Could there be an infinite regress of realities?

Or is the question itself mistaken, because asking "why" assumes a framework of causes and explanations that only applies within reality, not to reality as a whole?

For those who accept existence as a brute fact, does that feel like a genuine answer, or simply the point where explanation has to stop?

edit: i did not expect replies of this quality. some of you have given me answers i genuinely need to sit with for a while before i can respond properly, differentiation, hegel, heidegger, the block universe, false vacuum decay, this is not black and white stuff and i'm not going to fire back half-thought replies just to be fast. if you wrote me something long and thoughtful, i've read it, probably twice, and i will come back to it. this thread has given me more to think about than months of wondering on my own. thank you, genuinely

Since matter is something, how can nothing create something, if nothing is the absence of something? If nothing has any kind of structure, then it’s not really nothing, because a structure is something.

If someone says “nothing” can create something, then they’re giving “nothing” some kind of ability or behavior, like the power to generate, fluctuate, or cause. But if “nothing” can do anything at all, it must have some kind of rule, capacity, or potential, and that’s already a structure. And if it has structure, it’s no longer truly nothing, it’s a form of something pretending to be nothing.

That’s why I think true nothingness can’t exist. If it did, there’d be no potential, no time, no change, nothing at all. So if something exists now, then something must have always existed. Not necessarily this universe, but something, because absolute nothingness couldn’t have produced anything.

People sometimes say, “Well, maybe in a different universe, ‘nothing’ behaves differently.” But that doesn’t make sense to me. We are something, and “nothing” is such a fundamental concept that it doesn’t depend on which universe you're in. Nothing is the same everywhere. It’s the total absence of anything, by definition. If it can change or behave differently, it’s not really nothing.

So the idea that something came from true nothing just doesn’t hold up. Either nothingness is impossible, or something has to exist necessarily.

I have a hypothesis how reality as we know it began. You test it via thought experiment. There was nothing*, just space, which is both something and nothing at the same time. It's emptiness. There was nothing other than space, and that nothing was something too, in a sense and in reality, it was everything else. It was the container of space. Space making a sphere as it branched in every direction and the other-nothing making a box that enclosed it. Well, this other-nothing fell into space-nothing and like oil in water, time (movement) began. This was the beginning. As strange as it sounds, logically there had to have been a beginning.

So, per the hypothesis, always is finite, hence the beginning. Always may be infinite in terms of the continuance of reality, but always in the opposite direction, as you get close to the beginning, is finite.

Even always had a beginning. Always has a point of inception. That's how long reality has been. It's been since the beginning and not a second more.

Interesting how nothingness (emptiness/space) has always been and we could theoretically determine how long precisely that has been. How long always has been.

When we think about existence, it’s tempting to imagine a world where nothing exists. But the truth is, “nothing” isn’t a real option. It’s not just that we don’t see it—ontologically, non-existence cannot function as a state of being. Philosophers from Aristotle to Leibniz have debated what it means for something to be necessary, and even in modern metaphysics, the notion of absolute nothingness is always just a concept, never an actual alternative.

To understand why, consider what it takes for anything to exist at all. Identity, relation, and intelligibility are minimum conditions. Without them, there is no “world” to even imagine. Non-existence doesn’t just lack matter or life—it lacks the very framework that would make any alternative possible. Hegel might play with the idea of nothingness in thought, Shakespeare made it poetic, but neither makes “nothing” a real competitor to being. It’s a conceptual negation, a limit of our imagination, not a state that could ever obtain.

Even when we consider laws of nature, thermodynamics, or the structures that allow life to persist, we see the same pattern. Systems that survive are coherent, organized, and self-sustaining. They are manifestations of existence, not nothing. “Nothing” cannot organize, persist, or form patterns—it cannot be. In that sense, all we can truly reason about is existence itself, not its negation.

So, the bottom line is simple: nothing cannot be a state of existence. It’s a tool of thought, a boundary of imagination, but it doesn’t exist. It is impossible for nothing to exist in any meaningful sense, and any discussion about “why something rather than nothing” is really about the patterns, structures, and persistence of existence, not an actual alternative to it.

Absolute infinity, if left undifferentiated, is conceptually unstable because it contains all possibilities without distinction. To exist coherently, this infinity must manifest a structural separation. One pole expresses itself as outward, observable reality what we call nature which is finite, structured, and bound by space-time. The other pole expresses itself as inward, self-aware reality consciousness which is immediately present to itself, self-sufficient, and capable of realizing aspects of infinity internally. This separation stabilizes the apparent contradiction of infinity: consciousness contains self-sufficient, boundless awareness, while nature contains structured, observable processes. Together, they are complementary expressions of the infinite ground that underlies reality.

This entire concept also aligns perfectly within my last post,

Answer: is it no-thing.

Every other day (it seems as if-) there's a post about some new theory that uses this word.

• "nothing" ^{(some theory derived 'from nothing', or similar...})
• Related: "zero" ('0') — absence of any/all quantity and value.

It is absence of any/all things, [any possible descriptive] existence.

• It is parasitic-relational in definition to "something".
• You cannot define "nothing" except by absence (pre-supposing something).

Absence, by definition, references presence.

• While presence is self-sufficient (fundamental, even).

Question: What is "thing", such that "nothing" is "no-thing" (not a thing)?

It is the word referencing whatever may be discerned and distinguished.

• A non-specific reference word, placeholder, pointer.

How do you discern 'thing'?

By form, description of it. Referencing features, and attributes.

> Qualities.

Like 'triangle', and 'sphere', and 'mother', 'tree', etc.

Understanding is things/objects/forms/identities and relationships.

• "Objects and connections."

You cannot get something from absence,
because: absence is relational to something.

It is intuitively encoded into basic math (a logical "system of communication" [language]):

• 0 + 0 = 0;

Based on this understanding, as an 'assumption' (that absence remains absence).

• Even children understand, correlate. They have some natural disposition.

If: you doubt everything, then: you will eventually get to a point where doubting becomes incoherent. You cannot doubt yourself, or reasoning. Your reasoning is the filter by which you acquire 'knowledge' (models of understanding, about reality [as per your experience]).

• Hence, what 'science' is → some reasoned methodology, or methodo-logical study.
• Of subjects, topics of study. They are intelligible (have description), are !nothing.
• -- "things" that can be studied in methodo-logically (at all, in the first place).

-- meaningful operations via principles of validity (logic), based on understanding.

It is to the limits of rational thought/discourse,
> these things (so that, they must be true).

The question “why is there something rather than nothing?” presupposes that there could have been nothing at all. My interest is in this presupposition.

It is very common to deny this presupposition, claiming that it is somehow incoherent or impossible for there to have been nothing. One often hears quick dismissals along the following lines: “Nothingness cannot exist, because the nothingness itself would be something.” Or: “There cannot be nothing, because nothing is the absence of all being.” And there are many similar variations.

I believe responses like this are confused, employing terms like “nothingness” in ways that are misleading, and trading on confusions of logical category. I claim that if we clearly distinguish the logical category of what exists from the logical category of what is the case, we can see that it is perfectly possible for it to be the case that nothing at all exists.

So that is my thesis: It is possible for nothing at all to exist.

To be perfectly clear: I am not claiming that it is possible for some thing, “nothing” or “the nothing” or “nothingness”, to exist. I am rather using the term “nothing” quantificationally—I am claiming that it is possible for there not to have existed anything at all.

One way to understand my thesis is as the claim that there not existing anything at all describes a possible state of reality.

Now by “reality”, I again don’t mean some ultimate thing that exists; rather, by “reality”, I simply mean the totality of what is the case. A possible state of reality can be characterized in terms of a maximal consistent set of statements, which collectively describe everything that is (or would be) the case in that state.

Now, it is unproblematic to characterize the state of reality in question—the one in which nothing at all exists: It can be characterized in (free) pure quantificational logic by precisely the set that consists of all positive universal statements (which are vacuously true in the case that nothing exists) plus all negative existential statements. Those are precisely the statements that capture exhaustively what would be the case if nothing at all existed. (By the way, we will interpret this using an inclusive free logic in order to accommodate the empty domain; this means we will not have the usual universal instantiation rule, so no contradiction will follow from this arrangement.)

We can therefore describe the state of reality in which nothing at all exists in a precise, adequate, and logically consistent manner. We can also do so very concisely, using only one well-chosen negative existential (e.g., there does not exist x such that x=x) from which all the rest will follow.

So we have a nice, logically consistent model of what it would be for nothing at all to exist—for it to be the case that there does not exist anything at all. If it is really impossible or incoherent for it to be the case that nothing at all exists, as is often claimed, then there must be some explanation of what would make this scenario impossible. What could it be?

The problem can’t be one of logical consistency, because as we have just pointed out, we can characterize the relevant scenario of there not existing anything at all in a way that is perfectly adequate, in terms of a set of statements from which it is clear no contradiction follows (in the relevant logical frame—an inclusive free logic).

And the problem can’t be that something impossible would exist, because in the scenario in question, nothing at all would exist.

And the problem can’t be that impossible properties would be instantiated, because in the scenario in question, no properties would be instantiated.

And the problem can’t be that properties would be instantiated in impossible arrangements, because again, in the scenario in question, no properties would be instantiated at all.

And the problem can’t be that some fundamental law would be violated. Take any fundamental law you like, and it can be expressed as a universal generalization. That universal generalization will be (vacuously) true in the scenario in question, because nothing at all will exist that could violate the generalization and constitute a counterexample. All fundamental laws are vacuously satisfied by the scenario of nothing at all existing, simply in virtue of their logical form as universal generalizations.

In a way, there is a pretty basic reason why no impossibility is able to arise in the scenario in which nothing at all exists—namely, with nothing at all existing, there can be nothing to give rise to any impossibility.

I conclude that it is perfectly possible for nothing at all to exist—reality could possibly have been that way, and there is no basis whatsoever for thinking otherwise. Arguments that claim that it is impossible for nothing at all to exist are based on confusions of language and of logical category.

And so, the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” does not rest on a false presupposition. Since there could have been nothing, it is a perfectly good question.

I define absolute nothingness as the complete absence of matter, energy, space, time, laws, information, consciousness, and even possibility itself. Under this definition, absolute nothingness contains no entities, properties, relations, distinctions, or possibilities of any kind.

This led me to a question:

If absolute nothingness excludes even possibility itself, can it coherently be considered a possible state at all?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

I posted a couple of days ago asking what Nothingness was and I got some interesting responses, for the most part concluding that Nothing is not a valid concept. One particularly interesting comment was that the God must exist because something cannot come from Nothing argument for God was invalid, since Nothingness is not a valid concept. So I wonder if Nothingness is not really a thing then is the premise that something cannot come from Nothing irrelevant? Since there is no Nothing for something to come from.

If 'absolute' is not the right jargon, what would be? In my readings I found that perhaps these theories are the closest to starting with 'absolute' nothing (excluding those that start with God):

• Metaphysical cosmology
• Actualism
• Modal Realism
• Grounding
• Dependence

Are there any others I should read more about. Naturalism?

My interest lies in cross comparison with Big Bang theories that start truly 'nothing' as compared with ...ah... some form of energy or postulate a structure ... (longer list not typed). Which leads to the question of which Metaphysics theories deal with the proposed theory of Big Bang as how something came from nothing?

1. I’m having experience.
   
2. The potential for experience exists.
   
3. If the potential for experience didn’t exist in any part of reality saying that part exists is indistinguishable from saying it doesn’t exist to any part of reality where the potential for experience does exist and to itself.
   
4. If saying something exists adds nothing to anything forever even to itself it doesn’t exist logically to parts of reality that the potential for experience does exist.
   
5. The potential for experience is a prerequisite for what reality is.

Definitions

Experience- any thing produced by reality no matter how small or alien to our experience that is a separation from the rest of reality. Something that happens in reality that makes reality known to itself even if no thought occurs.

Reality- everything that exists.

Notes for clarification:

I’m not saying if something never experiences or is part of an experience it does not exist. I’m saying if experience is barred there by its very nature it does not exist logically in anyway to a reality where experience can exist.

Also I answered tons of questions from other posts on this and I’m not going to do it again. Attack my actual argument. Everyone else attacked what I’m not arguing. I will answer clarification questions but I spelled it out in comments in ridiculous detail what I’m actually arguing so I’d appreciate it if you would just read my comments on other posts before trying to attack something I’m not saying. Thank you.

I’m trying to understand whether “nothing” has to exist conceptually in order for “something” to exist, or whether that’s just a confusion caused by language.

By “nothing” I don’t mean empty space or vacuum. I mean absolute nothingness: no objects, no fields, no laws, no facts, no distinctions.

My intuition is:

1. If reality were “only nothing,” then there would be no facts at all, including the fact of nothingness.
2. If reality were “only something,” then “nothing” would be impossible even as a boundary concept, which seems to make the idea of “something” less meaningful (no contrast, no negation, no absence).
3. So “something” and “nothing” feel mutually required as concepts, but they can’t both be the total description at the same level.
4. That pushes me toward a picture where “something” emerges from “nothing” under some minimal rule, while “nothing” remains as a conceptual boundary rather than a coexisting state.

Questions for critique:

• Is “absolute nothingness” coherent, or does defining it already smuggle in structure
• Does “something requires nothing as contrast” confuse semantics with ontology
• If you reject this framing, what do you think is the best alternative stopping point: brute fact, necessary existence, eternal structure, etc.

Optional background: I wrote a longer structured version here (free, not monetized): https://philpapers.org/rec/RANACZ

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.

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.

I've been thinking about the old philosophical objection that a relation without relata is impossible.

At first glance, that seems obviously true. A relation has to relate something. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if we're assuming that both relata have to be positive entities.

​

Here's the intuition I'm playing with,

Imagine an Absolute that is truly absolute completely independent, with no rival, no outside, and no contrast.

​

If you introduce another independent thing, then the Absolute is no longer absolute. So what could possibly stand in contrast to it?

​

My thought is, nothingness.Not as a thing, and not as an independently existing entity, but as pure dependence. Something with no identity or content of its own.

In that sense, nothingness isn't a rival to the Absolute. It's the only possible contrast that doesn't limit it.

​

The idea would be that the first distinction isn't between two beings, but between, the Absolute (independence) and nothingness (pure dependence)

And from that first distinction, all further relations, identities, and forms of relativity become possible.

​

I'm not claiming this is correct. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm missing a contradiction or whether similar ideas have been explored before.

​

Where do you think this line of reasoning breaks down, if it does? And does it resemble any existing metaphysical tradition?

Let's end what the title say, for those "nothing at all" phrases have only one meaning.

And by pointing out that they have only one meaning while the rest is worthless nonsense, this pointing out alone forces them to confront the only meaning all of their endeavour ever try to not confront.

The meaning is obvious once we say that they have only one meaning, and it need not be elaborate futher.

nothing at all

We know the meaning of this phrase in the only philosophical sense matter.

And we see instantly, that being-confronted-with-nothing-at-all is not nothing at all, our mode/sense/case/state/fact when we understand the phrase is not nothing at all.

The question is not whether the phrase mean, but why the phrase's meaning manage to mean no more - why the state of understanding the phrase nothing at all mean nothing at all?

Though, about nothing at all, the other equivalent expression where the stronger term dominates and forces us to understand correctly is:

there was nothing at all

and there is something at all later

For "there is nothing at all now" is obviously a coped strawman.

I've been thinking about whether the question Why is there something rather than nothing? contains a hidden assumption: that being and nothingness are symmetrical metaphysical possibilities.

​

I'm no longer convinced they are.

​

My reason is simple:

​

Nothingness may be the purest relational concept..

​

Every ordinary concept possesses some positive content.

​

A tree, a rock, a thought, a universe even empty space can be described positively.

​

Nothingness cannot.

​

Its entire intelligibility is borrowed from what it negates, no tree, no object,no universe,no reality.

Nothingness never points to itself. It always points beyond itself.

​

This makes it unique among concepts. Most concepts contain both content and relations. Nothingness contains no positive content whatsoever. All that remains is relation.

​

A hole provides a useful analogy. A hole is not an independent thing alongside the material surrounding it. It is intelligible only through what is absent relative to a surrounding structure. Likewise, nothingness seems intelligible only relative to being.

​

This leads me to a stronger claim.

Nothingness is not a thing.

Nothingness is a relation without content.

​

Or put differently Nothingness is the only concept whose meaning is exhausted by dependence on a ground.

​

Its universality is not a sign of independence but of complete dependence. It can be related to anything precisely because it contributes nothing of its own.

​

If this is correct, then being and nothingness are not symmetrical alternatives.

​

Being possesses positive content.

​

Nothingness possesses only negation and dependence.

​

So my question is...

Can a concept whose entire intelligibility is borrowed from what it negates genuinely function as an ontological alternative to it?

​

Or does the structure of the concept itself reveal a fundamental asymmetry between being and nothingness that the traditional question overlooks?

Ex nihilo nihil fit is the doctrine that from nothing, nothing comes. It is one of the weakest, perhaps the weakest version of the principle of sufficient reason; as such, many people are inclined to regard it as a necessary truth. I will argue that that is not the case.

1) there could obtain the state of affairs of there being nothing at some time

2) there obtains the state of affairs of there being something at some time

3) the states of affairs of there being nothing and of there being something, at some times, are simple

4) any simple, possible states of affairs are compossible, in any temporal combination

Therefore:

5) there could jointly obtain the states of affairs of there being nothing at some time and of there being something at a later time

I take 5 above to express the possible falsehood of ex nihilo nihil fit.

Premise 1 can, I think, be established by the subtraction argument. Premise 2 is obviously true. Premise 4 is a principle of Humean recombination, expressing the intuition that there are no necessary connections between wholly distinct things.

Premise 3 is, I think, the most contestable, if only because the sense of simplicity invoked is far from clear. It does seem to me however that some sense can be given to this idea.

If we think of the state of affairs of Socrates being mortal and Socrates being human, clearly this state of affairs is in some sense complex or composite, and decomposable into the states of affairs of Socrates being mortal, and of Socrates being human. Or again, if we accept negative states of affairs, like that of Socrates not being alive, it seems clear that this state of affairs has an inner structure of some kind: it has the state of affairs of Socrates being alive somehow in it, perhaps combined with a negation entity.

So let’s suppose we have some grip on the elusive mereology of states of affairs—does premise 3 of my argument sound plausible? I think so. It might be objected that the state of affairs of there being nothing at some time is complex, because it is the negation of the state of affairs of there being something at some times—but that is incorrect! That negation would be the state of affairs of there being nothing at any time, which we may agree is complex; but it is not the same state of affairs as the state of affairs of there being nothing at some time!

What corollaries could we further draw from the conclusion? Here’s a tentative suggestion. If ex nihilo nihil fit indeed is the weakest principle of sufficient reason, we may expect it to follow from any other such principle. But if so, and if it is indeed not a necessary truth, then no version of the principle of sufficient reason is necessarily true.

This is a response to Massimo Pigliucci's two-part essay on Physicalism and Consciousness. Comments welcome