If you drop ‘nothing’ as a concept then ‘something’ as a concept because useless. Everyone seems to accept this in ‘merely local contexts’ but have problems with it at I guess might be called ultimate contexts. The trick here is that if one says everything is something, we have no way to differentiate one something from another something. It’s all the same thing. What is it? It’s something. It becomes a tautology and empty. Difference isn’t accounted for but that space, that opening or clearing as Heidegger calls it can be usefully described as no-thingness. Now, these are all metapors for a thinglessness that is qualitatively different from something. It can’t be pointed to or explained, we can’t even really talk about it except in terms of its effects. The problem with language isn’t that it has a metaphysical concept of no-thingness, but that the very possibility of language and any something is dependent on no-thingness. This doesn’t mean, as was mentioned early, that no-thingness is somehow more real than some-thingness, that’s a misreading of Heidegger I think, it’s not in some hierarchical relationship with some-thingness but the setting, the ultimate context if you want, for difference, for meaning, for significance to be possible.
I would say that there is something and nothing. Everywhere.
It usually helps to say why you think that 
This question has a huge dependence on the definition of terms. Nothing can exist if you explain it this way…say you have an entire universe packed full of objects, gas, particles, etc. Then, in one area, which can be any size you wish, like a planet size sphere, there is absolutely nothing. No matter, no particles, no energy, nothing. Dead, empty space. Now, against the context of the rest of the universe, this area is something. It stands out against everything else. Now nothing is something isn’t it?
Not necessarily, you’re thinking on the right tracks, but some-one may define a hole as something, but it contains nothing. In your example it’s not the nothingness that is something, but the hole that is something. But then it also depends if you believe there are such things as holes, some see them as linguistic conventions, that they’re not really objects, just a way of describing the surrounding object. Hence a table with a hole in it doesn’t really have a ‘hole’ in it as an object, it’s just a useful linguistic convention to refer to the shape of the table, it’s described as a table with a hole in rather than a table that at point X there is a circle of radius r in which it has no wood. As you can see it’s hard to easily explain a table with a hole in it without using the concept of a hole, but as a hole is nothing, conversely you could argue it isn’t an object. But there are some philosophers that argue it is, like corners, numbers, etc. Things which have no physical extension, but are nevertheless objects. It’s still a controversial subject today, for example in the philosophy of mathematics which only really took off with Frege at the beginning of the 20th century.
I usually think this sort of discussion is about as constructive as a dead pencil, but I’m actually finding this slightly interesting and very amusing.
Taking the example you used Matt, we should hold a few premises first: 1)That a word can be seen as a symbol for a particular object (e.g. table being for a table) 2)That hole is a symbol used (in your example, at least) strictly in relation to the subject word, which is table, and signifies the absence of table, as we know it.
With these two premises in mind, would the logical conclusion be to declare that nothing is merely only ever referring to the absence of the subject/word (the object of reference), that is, the something? Therefore, is not the word nothing only ever referring to the absence of (what you described as the ‘surrounding object’) the something that the sentence refers to, and not necessarily anything at all, or any substance for that matter. The use of the word space, only refers to the symbol we use to signify what makes up the absence of something. The illusion that nothing must indeed be something has been created by our very need to use symbols to signify all objects and phenomena of our natural and mental world. In short, a word always refers to something, even if that something we are referring to, is in fact the absence of that something, or dare I say it, nothing.
If we relieve ourselves of looking at how our use of words as symbols has created this illusion, then we should really attempt an answer to this question in the Science forum. Like many philsophical problems, I genuinely believe this question can be answered with our head near the ground, or at least not using the abstract terms of analytic philosophy, whose wavering definitions make working out a problem far more difficult than needs be. Philosophers do this, to give themselves more to be occupied with*. I couldn’t help but laugh when a user earlier in this thread was caught red-handed wrangling over the difference between the terms ‘absolute nothing’ and ‘limited nothing’. This problem (as far as words go) has been created by the misuse of words out of the sentence they are being used within. If you throw away context in language, you could find yourself working out and probably drive yourself mad working out problems like this. It would be very much like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, that does not exist. This should be a debate between Stephen Hawking and Noam Chomsky.
I used to read a lot of analytic philosophy, and very nearly ended up starting a course in Philosophy last year. I’d like to know whether the sign-symbol-signifier terms I used were correct, whether I ironically used the wrong words.
*(I’m tempted to start a new thread, answering the following question: Can philosophy ever ‘run out’?)
applause to Pangloss,
very well said, I’m glad you saved me much time and typing in saying almost the same myself.
Cheers,
If I tell you there is nothing in the bureau drawer, it is not like telling you there is a pair of socks in the drawer. Or, when I tell you there is only a pair of socks in the drawer, I don’t think you understand me as saying there are two things in the drawer, a pair of socks and nothing.
What I am pointing our is that “nothing” is not the name of something. In fact, “nothing” is not a name at all.
That is why it is so strange to ask why is there something rather than nothing, because that question itself assumes that there could be something called “nothing” and asks why it doesn’t exist. But that assumption is wrong, because it makes no sense to talk about a something which is a nothing, and then to ask why that doesn’t exist.
What would I be telling you if I told you there is nothing in the bureau drawer if I am not telling you that there is really something in the bureau drawer? I am telling you simply that the drawer is empty. Or, more clearly, maybe, I am telling you that it is false that there is anything in the drawer. So, “nothing” is not a name of something. It isn’t a name at all as the question assumes it is. Rather, it is a way of saying that a sentence like “there is something in the drawer” is false. Nothing operates the way a negation sign operates. It means simply, “it is not true that…” or “it is not the case that…” When we see that, the question, why is there something rather than nothing? turns out to be a nonsense question, or what is called, a pseudo-question.
Nothing is not something. It is the absence of something.
The paradox only arises when we make the mistake of giving nothing the same tangible property as something.
Words are more than just monolithic names, unrelated to the world of ideas and things we are describing, as Derrida would have us believe. They are signifiers, signifying objects and properties in the real world.
The word nothing is always attached to a subject, the something whose absence you are indicating.
Kennethamy, you are right to dismiss “why is there something rather than nothing” as a nonsense question. The best response is to patronise the asker by answering straight, and ignoring their French claims that you’re merely repeating the question - “because there is something there”.
If I replied to the asker “Because there is something there” the asker would properly reply, “That’s not an argument. it is merely a repeat of the controversy, and so, begs the question.” If someone were to ask me why I believed that God exists, it would not be much of an answer, in fact, no answer, to reply, “Because he does.”
My point is that the question assumes that “nothing” is the name of something. “Nothing” is not only not the name of something, it is not a name at all.
I think the term ‘nothing’ is irrelevant because ‘nothing’ doesn’t exist because its not there. There is only ‘everything’.
When u ask someone to visualise nothingness, they think of blackness or an area with no things in it. But this is in fact ‘something’ because empty space is still something that exists even if there are no things in it.
If ‘everything’ were to suddenly cease to be, there would be ‘nothing’ - an absence of ‘anything’, but u cannot have a mix of the 2 states. You might argue that u can have an enclosed area of ‘something’ with ‘nothing’ around it, but since ‘nothing’ is literally not there, it is not possible for that ‘something’ to be surrounded at all and it becomes ‘everything’ and infinite.
Objects that are matter that can be detected can be surrounded by empty space, which is how I visualise the universe, but they all exist and are collectively ‘everything’.
The original question on this thread asks why there should be a state of something as opposed to an absence of anything - an existence of things as opposed to nothing.
I can only say that if a creator were to have created this ‘something’, what created the creator? ie. There just happened to always have been something, and never nothing.
What a cop-out…
On a lighter note, I heard a funny piece of evidence for why ‘nothing’ is still something…because if you divide nothing by nothing or 0/0=…1!
Okay, jokes over, there’s no more to see here ladies and gentlemen.
As you were
0/0 does not equal one good lord what are you thinking. Anyways I love all this talk about how something is one extreme and nothing is the other. I have got something new it is called everything. I would say nothing and everything are at the extremes but who cares. The real question was does nothing exist. Lets look at the question does no_thing exist? hmmmmm. No thing exist…well if it is the lack of thing that it probably doesn’t exist because in our english language thing is the basic unit and we can have everything something or nothing but it is hard to use english when we are trying to argue metaphysics. But this is cool. How could we tell if nothing existed? It IS no thing so really we couldn’t tell. Using this logic though infinite nothings exists. Because we don’t see a no thing so we don’t see nothing (double negative) so we do see things. tricky and sticky
I found this extremely funny. Thank you.
Yossarian,
I don’t know whether you were joking or not, but the mathematical rule is that any number divided by itself is ‘1’, hence 0/0=1
But it was meant as a joke, cause most people would tell you that zero isn’t really a number, that’s to be debated.
What’s your take?
What is an illusionary thought?
The hilarious joke aside, Zero represents nothing, the absence of something. You cannot divide absence by an absence. If you think outside numbers as an artificial system, a whole within itself, and observe their real-world points of reference, how can any division take place where the units involved signify the absence of what is being measured? Can somebody explain how 0/0=1, using reality as the point of reference? Does 0/0=1 take 0=0 too far?
I don’t know how much math you have had but I know for a fact that rule is this: n/n = 1 if n !=0
nothing can be divided by 0 and when it happens that either 0 or a non real number is on denominator of a fraction the fraction has yet to be simplified and by good practice this is also good for radical numbers.
Pangloss stated:
Using reality as the point of reference is leading onto the right path, a path I wrote about a long time ago, in reference to arithmetic, that is. I don’t know if you remember my post about the trouble with 1+1=2 - but that would be my response to your above quote. I don’t have a link to provide you, but the elucidation is on atleast two of my posts somewhere, if you wish, I will repost it again from my archives.
What’s your take?
quote=“Brad”]If you drop ‘nothing’ as a concept then ‘something’ as a concept because useless. Everyone seems to accept this in ‘merely local contexts’ but have problems with it at I guess might be called ultimate contexts. The trick here is that if one says everything is something, we have no way to differentiate one something from another something. It’s all the same thing. What is it? It’s something. It becomes a tautology and empty. Difference isn’t accounted for but that space, that opening or clearing as Heidegger calls it can be usefully described as no-thingness. Now, these are all metapors for a thinglessness that is qualitatively different from something. It can’t be pointed to or explained, we can’t even really talk about it except in terms of its effects. The problem with language isn’t that it has a metaphysical concept of no-thingness, but that the very possibility of language and any something is dependent on no-thingness. This doesn’t mean, as was mentioned early, that no-thingness is somehow more real than some-thingness, that’s a misreading of Heidegger I think, it’s not in some hierarchical relationship with some-thingness but the setting, the ultimate context if you want, for difference, for meaning, for significance to be possible.
[/quote]
Neither “something” nor “nothing” are names of concepts. They are quantifiers, and “syncategorimatic” terms like “if” or “although.” If something were a concept, then there would be (or could be) a bunch of somethings in the world, all having (ahem) something in common. And if nothing were a concept, then there would (or could) be a bunch of nothings in world, all having something in common. There is the concept of giraffe because there are (or could be) a bunch of giraffes in the world having certain properties in common. The concept of giraffe describes those common properties. It make no sense to talk that way about something or about nothing. It is a fantasy of philosophers that those terms name concepts.