Can Something That Doesn't Exist Exist? The Paradox of Non-Existence

[Imparcticle]

I will begin this thread with an example. Take "nothing" for example. It is defined as "non-existence" in short. Though the use of the word in common terms is more directed towards absence (which does not neccesarily signify non-existence...bare with me on those semantics...I can't help it). Anywho, some people who are on a more philosophical mindset might try to understand such a "state". Note, that doing so is futile. "Nothing" does not exist, therefore, it's pointless to try and acknowledge its existence.
And so my problem emerges. By saying that it is impossible for something that doesn't exist to exist, am I also saying that something that does not exist CAN not not exist??

This has been bugging me for a full 48 hours. I am beginning (yes, just beginning) to think it is a rather pointless (oh deer, that would make it non existent! :surprise: ) problem, with no meaning whatsoever. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

"How can nothing exist, if nothing itself is something?" I think that's what your saying. I was actually thinking this the other day. My conclusion is that something always exists and nothing is just an exaggerated term created for the benefit of language and explanation.

 

[Egmont]

And so my problem emerges. By saying that it is impossible for something that doesn't exist to exist, am I also saying that something that does not exist CAN not not exist??

This situation is far more common than you might realize. The issue here is that you're dealing with a meaningless assertion - "nothing exists" or "nothing does not exist". You think both sentences have meaning, and therefore one of them must be true and the other false, but the fact is meaningless sentences can't be true or false. That's why they are meaningless.

A colleague at work just showed me a book about "time travel". Another meaningless concept. You can't travel through time, you can only travel through space - that's what the word "travel" means. But you get PhDs and Nobel laureates seriously considering whether a meaningless statement is true or false. So don't feel bad for doing it, you're in good company.

 

[wuliheron]

Words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in a given context. In other words, you can have a private meaning for such statements, but outside of a specific context it cannot be shared. The identity of these words is the issue, what does "nothing" and "exist" and "nonexistent" mean?

Outside of any specific context, all you can do is endlessly split semantic hairs, defining one word in terms of another and so one. This is exactly what you are doing, going in circles attempting to define one word in terms of another, while searching for a logical statement. Logic is merely another word, another concept, and without a specific context it too is meaningless.

 

[Philocrat]

I will begin this thread with an example. Take "nothing" for example. It is defined as "non-existence" in short. Though the use of the word in common terms is more directed towards absence (which does not neccesarily signify non-existence...bare with me on those semantics...I can't help it). Anywho, some people who are on a more philosophical mindset might try to understand such a "state". Note, that doing so is futile. "Nothing" does not exist, therefore, it's pointless to try and acknowledge its existence.
And so my problem emerges. By saying that it is impossible for something that doesn't exist to exist, am I also saying that something that does not exist CAN not not exist??

This has been bugging me for a full 48 hours. I am beginning (yes, just beginning) to think it is a rather pointless (oh deer, that would make it non existent! :surprise: ) problem, with no meaning whatsoever. I hope I'm wrong.

I am glad that you started this topic as a separate thread, as this is precisely what I have been battling with everywhere else. That 'Nothing' exists goes against the very essence of critical and clear thinking. So many things have been said about this issue such that it becomes more and more confused. And these are just some of them:

1) That 'Nothing' esists or that there is such thing as 'Nothing'

2) That there is a clearly quantifiable relation between 'Nothing' and 'Something'

3) That 'Nothing' can give rise to 'Something' (that is, bring something into being)

4) That 'Something' can decline or change into 'Nothing'

But the most problematic aspect of all this is that it seems as if in all our declaratory, existential and explanatory claims in our natural language and in our day-to-day interactions with each other we are 'THINKING' that:


5) When something is invisible or unobservable that it is non-physical

6) When something is invisible or unobservable that it is non-existent


And so far everyone seems to be very sly about them and consequently systematically avoid them. Go to the metaphysical, philosophical, epistemolgical sections and see how people systematically avoid all these questions. I have been arguing all along that we should be brave and confront these questions head on. My Position has always been this:

1) There has never been and there will never be 'Nothing'

2) Since there is no 'Nothing' there is no natural clarifying relation between 'Something' and 'Nothing'

3) Since (1) and (2) are completely and wholly true 'Nothing' cannot give rise to Something, nor neither can anything which is Something decline or change into 'Nothing'.

4) Mathematics, Our natural Languages, and any other quatificational and declaratory aparatuses may very well make references to 'Nothing' and its realtion to 'Something', I argue that such references are fundamentally fictional and intellectually misleading.

 

[Rasine]

nothing does exist simply because if we have somthing, then there must be nothing, otherwise we would not know if there was somthing. in other words, it is like opposing entities. also if nothing didn't exist then we would have no knowledge of the sort, we would never be having this conversation. if nothing wasn't evident, we could not distinguish it, thus it would not exsit.

 

[Imparcticle]

Unicorns don't exist and yet, I can imagine such a thing and talk about it too. Just because something doesn't exist doesn't mean we can't talk about it.

You bring up a good point, Rasine. Our ability to distinguish between existence and non-existence is profound, I think. It is like making an abstraction between numbers and objects.

A colleague at work just showed me a book about "time travel". Another meaningless concept. You can't travel through time, you can only travel through space - that's what the word "travel" means. But you get PhDs and Nobel laureates seriously considering whether a meaningless statement is true or false. So don't feel bad for doing it, you're in good company.

As wuliheron pointed out, "the identity of the words is the issue". "Time travel" is just a figure of speech used to identify travel (yes, as you said) through space. As Einstein showed in his theories of Relativity, space and time are very much related. So if you take the simple concept underlying wormholes--aka Einstein-Rosen bridges, i think---, if the distance from point "A" to point "B" can be decreased by "folding" the space between, it would take less time to go from point "A" to point "B".



Thank you everyone for clearing this up for me.

 

[omin]

We think we understand zero or nothing till we begin to think about it and find it to be something that is difficult to comprehend, because nothing should bring no thought, but thought always represent something that does exist, whether it's thought of an objective thing or a thought of a subjective thing.

no-thing. 'no' is the quantity. 'thing' is the general category for things that exist. We only know objective or subjective things. Even things that are imaginary and only exist in the mind, nevertheless do exist. When we put the quantity 'no' on 'thing', we are assuming we are cancelling existence. But we can't speak a zero.

The principle of zero doesn't come from the infinite lack of quantity or infinite lack of existence. It comes from postive displacement. First we must sense something. When that thing is moved, it now leaves what we call space. This space is the nothing. But, what is space? Philosophically, we don't sense space, we only sense the objects that is beyond the space. Try to see the space between you and the computer screen. Good luck.

What is nothing then? It's just an inference that a thing was there and now it's moved.

It may also mean something very small, but not detecable enough to call it a thing. We may not see a field gravity, but we sense the effects of it in terms of displacement of things we do see. If we look across the room, we can say minus the air particle nothing exists, such as a vacuum, but gravity is there, so this nothing is something in a small, but significant sense if that heavy object falls on you.

All thoughts represent something positive. Negative creates confusion, so does zero, nothing, and non-quantities if you don't look for the positive principle that is necessary for us to begin have a thought about 'something' of the so-called 'nothing'.

The term nothing is simply used for convience to represent an inferred displacement or a very, very small quantity. But if you think about it hardly, it's really a positive thing.

 

[The_Thinker]

The problem with this kind of thinking is that, we can reason out to our extremes of what we understand or rather what we can observe.

"Nothing" cannot be observed, because to be blunt there's nothing to observe. So basically, that is why you cannot comprehend the idea of nothing, because you have not been able to understand or observe anything in actuality that have properties resembeling that of "nothing". And also nothing has no properties. So you end up in wondering what it could be because, clear logic and experience tells you that something that you cannot understand does not mean it does not exist. And since you cannot understand "nothing" you are wondering what you have not understood.

You, see, it's simple.

 

[omin]

So you end up in wondering what it could be because, clear logic and experience tells you that something that you cannot understand does not mean it does not exist. And since you cannot understand "nothing" you are wondering what you have not understood.

You, see, it's simple.

Are you saying that it exists, but you just can't sense it?

 

[Iacchus32]

Hey, it's all or nothing man. And yet, what I would like to know, was nothing absolute before the Big Bang? Did we have absolutely nothing to speak of or, absolutely something to speak of?

 

[Imparcticle]

Are you saying that it exists, but you just can't sense it?

Something that does not exist does not exist. (note: please ignore the error; I referred to that which does not exist...I did it again. It can't be helped.)

Hey, it's all or nothing man. And yet, what I would like to know, was nothing absolute before the Big Bang? Did we have absolutely nothing to speak of or, absolutely something to speak of?

Simple: By saying "before the big bang", you are asserting that there was time before the BB. If time exists, then entropy exists. If entropy exists, there must absolutely be something.

 

[Ethanol]

If there are no hair on your head then it does not mean that they don't exist any where. Also if hair really does not exist your scalp does. So there is always an existence of one thing or the other. If there wasn't anything before Big Bang i.e. no matter or mass then obviously energy would have existed. Mass can be regarded as concentrated form of energy.

 

[PoPpAScience]

"Nothing" is a purely descriptive word, and has no actuality. "Nothing" is used to describe the lack of a particular thing in a "something environment". There is always something somewhere, so "Nothing" can only be descriptive in nature. Now, sense everything seems to come from something, then the very first thing had to come from a "Thing" that was nether "Something" nor "Nothing". I know what this thing is, do you?

 

[Chronos]

Reference frame arguments. That 'nothing is nothing' is self-evident by observational evidence. You cannot observe 'nothing', therefore it is irrelevant.

 

[Emass]

You can get something for nothing...can't you?

 

[setAI]

we can define a system X as finite because it is limited by NOT-X [all things other than X]- this works for all systems because no system includes everything- but if X is All Existence- if X DOES include everything- then Not-X is NON-Existence which is necessarily self-negating and cannot limit X- thus if X is Existence- then it is infinite QED [a succinct encapsulation of Spinoza’s Ethics]

 

[physicsuser]

What was universe created in? If in nothing, then how can there be nothing if there was something in it?

 

[PoPpAScience]

You can have something from a non-something, if you think of what is nether a something or non-somthing. And there is such a thing and it moves all we know.

 

[Imparcticle]

we can define a system X as finite because it is limited by NOT-X [all things other than X]- this works for all systems because no system includes everything- but if X is All Existence- if X DOES include everything- then Not-X is NON-Existence which is necessarily self-negating and cannot limit X- thus if X is Existence- then it is infinite QED [a succinct encapsulation of Spinoza’s Ethics]

Very nicely put.

 

[Tovan]

::rubs eyes then brain::

I see ...

Existence is a bad idea ... who ever created existence should be fired :D

 

[wuliheron]

That's assuming they haven't already been fired. Personally, if I were as upset as some people seem to be I'd look for a good lawyer and sue the bastard.

 

[UltraPi1]

I love this kind of thread.

I'm one of those people that cottons to the idea that nothing exists.

How else would one get something from nothing?

 

[Royce]

We can not say that nothing exists due to semantics and logic. To exist, there must be something to exist and obviously something is not nothing.

There is being and not-being. Being is the state of existing and having properties. Even empty space, a vacuum as empty as it can be made still has properties and energy and is, therefore, something and can be said to exist.

Space-time has properties and energies and therefore can be said be something, to exist.

"Nothing" cannot have any properties or energies, is not something, is a state of non-being rather than being, therefore cannot be said to exist.

Yet "nothing" is. It is real, a part of reality. Whether we call it a void, abstract space, dimensionless space or nul-space, it is.

Before there was anything, there was nothing. If the Big Bang happened then it happened in nothing before there was space, time or space-time.
If the universe is not infinite and is expanding then it is expanding into nothing.

"Nothing" is; "nothing" is real; but, "nothing" does not, can not exist or be said to exist.

 

[DM]

A colleague at work just showed me a book about "time travel". Another meaningless concept. You can't travel through time, you can only travel through space - that's what the word "travel" means.

Interesting point there. But the book does say time travel and not space travel.

Now I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by that because if you're saying that we can only travel through space and yet when you say space you mean time, then I wonder...

But if what I'm thinking is right then how come we can't travel through time and only space?

I wouldn't consider it a meaningless concept, it is by far the most challenging concept that scientists relentlessly attempt to crack or find a solution to it.

In regards to "nothing" I don't also think it's meaningless because it can actually explain the universe. Before anything happened i.e Bing Bang, something else happened before it. This goes on and on until you reach the point of "nothing".

 

[UltraPi1]

We can not say that nothing exists due to semantics and logic. To exist, there must be something to exist and obviously something is not nothing.

I cannot prove that nothing exist by physical means. Mostly because your Existence is not physical either. This can only be done by conceptual means. That is to say that Existence is a conceptual entity.

There is being and not-being. Being is the state of existing and having properties. Even empty space, a vacuum as empty as it can be made still has properties and energy and is, therefore, something and can be said to exist.

It is space-time, which is no more than a form of nothing. It is an extension of what we call mass, and that mass is also no more than a form of nothing.

"Nothing" cannot have any properties or energies, is not something, is a state of non-being rather than being, therefore cannot be said to exist.

It is the form of nothing that exist, which gives rise to space-time.
I repeat - This is not a physical entity, but a conceptual ONE - ONE being the tree trunk of logic.

"Nothing" is; "nothing" is real; but, "nothing" does not, can not exist or be said to exist

There is a necessary contradiction here. Suffice to say - I Exist because I don't Exist as the the absolute tool. Existence is no more than a geometric. It's sum total in the infinite sense is a complete definition of nothing. Not to say the definition is complete, but that the process will never be complete. Your Existence is ongoing, which is to be expected in space-time.

 

[Royce]

I cannot prove that nothing exist by physical means. Mostly because your Existence is not physical either. This can only be done by conceptual means. That is to say that Existence is a conceptual entity.

I have just finished reading;"NOTHINGNESS; The science of empty space." by Henning Genz. He points out, rightfully so IMO, that space-time has properties that can be measured and the effects seen or detected. Even empty space has these properties; and, therefore, is something, is being; and, can, therefore, be said to exist.

It is space-time, which is no more than a form of nothing. It is an extension of what we call mass, and that mass is also no more than a form of nothing.
It is the form of nothing that exist, which gives rise to space-time.
I repeat - This is not a physical entity, but a conceptual ONE - ONE being the tree trunk of logic.

Again, there is a difference between space time and nothing. they are completely different orders of realty. Space-time has physical properties that can be measured and their effects measured and is therefore a physical reality that does exist. It is or is a property or characteristic of the Higgs field.

Nothing on the other hand has no properties or characteristics and is independant and not effected or influenced by the Higgs field or anything else. Yet nothing is real; nothing is. "Nothing is real." is the title of the last chapter in the book that I mentioned above. I reccomend it to anyone interested.

While nothing is real it does not have any properties; does not have any effect on anything else and can not be effected by anything else. Nothing is not space or time and space/time can not and does not exist within nothing or visa versa without the presence of energy and a higgs field.

It is the Higgs field that make space, time, mass and matter possible. Without the presence of a Higgs field and energy there can be no space, no time, no mass, no matter. Nor can there be any dimention or direction.

There is a necessary contradiction here. Suffice to say - I Exist because I don't Exist as the the absolute tool. Existence is no more than a geometric. It's sum total in the infinite sense is a complete definition of nothing. Not to say the definition is complete, but that the process will never be complete. Your Existence is ongoing, which is to be expected in space-time.

There is no contradiction so long as we realize that nothing is not the same as empty space and both are possible and both are real in reality. They are different orders of reality and can not be compared. Empty space has a physical energenic reality and is within the state of being. Nothing has no state or properties other than non-being yet it is and it is real.

 

[setAI]

In regards to "nothing" I don't also think it's meaningless because it can actually explain the universe. Before anything happened i.e Bing Bang, something else happened before it. This goes on and on until you reach the point of "nothing".

nequaquam vacuum

the multiverse azal and abad

 

[juju]

Hi all,

Nothingness can be looked at as a total and complete lack of differentiating properties. If there is no difference, then a somethingness can not be perceived or defined. The perceiver and definer are themselves undifferentiated with respect to anything else.

The empty set, as a subset of all other sets, then represents the non-differentiated whole outside the definition of the original set.

In this way non-existence can be defined as undifferentiate existence.

juju

 

[UltraPi1]

Even empty space has these properties; and, therefore, is something, is being; and, can, therefore, be said to exist.

Never said that empty space didn't have properties. I said that it's constituents were composed of nothing - As in the kind of nothing that has no properties. It is the form of a component that has the properties, and those properties are not physical. Same could be said for what we term mass. It is the form of mass that has properties, because mass also is composed of nothing at all. Empty space is no more than the extension of mass. For the most part ... You are talking about the same thing when discussing mass and empty space, and that thing is form (conceptual entities).

If there is one point that needs to be understood here - It is that your reality is not physical. Please toss it in the nearest receptacle (thank you). Besides - It can cause concussions that cloud your thinking. :-) To derive a universe from nothing - One must accept this implicitly. (Nothing) cannot willnot go to your trashcan for physics class.

 

[KaneOris]

The definition of nothingness is what it is, nothing... Now you can say, that if there was nothing it would still be something, and would have properties etc, but even if impossible to reach, nothingness means for nothing to exist, so wether it is achievable or not, nothingness is still nothing.

 

[eighth man]

48 hours is too long. Don't take logic too seriously, all this search for "non contradiction" is probably simply an "aesthetical (aka artistic)" preference. Any concept or problem or theory that is thought upon too precisely will end uo creating contradictions! That is because contradictions are the universe and we try to force it into a scheme of non contradictions.

I accept contradictions, because I think that it is a higher form of reasonining. Also you can claim anything and everything and get away with it and it is fun.

THE TOBOR APE

 

[Zuryn]

To say that "nothing" can not exist would be audacious because you would be refer referring "nothing" as to something that is more that a concept. To be concise, "nothing" is neither existent nor non-existent.

 

[KaneOris]

Yes but the idea of nothingness does exist, it is just unacheivable

 

[eighth man]

Remember to accept contradictions! Nothing exists and doesn't exist at the same time and in the same place. Everything is both true and false simultaneously! Every conceivable concept exists and doesn't exist simultaneously.

Really I can't understand why it is so hard to accept reasoning through contradiction! There is absolutely no reason not to use this wonderful logical mechanism that solves all philosophical problems. After all we are not calculating the structure of a bridge so contradictions in this realm is acceptable.


TOBOR APE MAN