Universe and Time

Yes, I can think in that way. The “potential to affect something” and the fact to “be seen, touched, smelled, or detected in some way even if not already detected” are perhaps not the same thing or, if they are the same thing, perceived differently because there are - for example - different observers, and there is the problem of the subject/object dualism.

By declared definition, Existence is that which has affect.” You are saying that existence is that which has affect. But do all people really use the words “exist” and “existence” as you use them? And if so, what or who ist the one which or who affects what or whom? What or who is the first one? Does an “affectless affect” exist? Is this so called “affectless affect” similar to the so called “unmoved mover”?

Different cultures/civilisations interpret or even construe the reality in a different way than other cultures/civilisations.

Does nothingness or nonentity have any affect? What about the “nirvana”? What do you think about the “nirvana”? And probably in contrast: what does Zinnat think about the “nirvana”? What do you think about Zinnat’s thinking about the “nirvana”? … And so on …

Arminius, I’m trying to understand you

Could you give one example for that?

If I understand you right, you mean the following: When people say that something exists, they mean, that they have the active part by perceiving that what exists with their senses. After James’ ontology, waves of affectance come from the objects to affect them (the people), so that they can perceive the objects (that what exists). In that case the ‘active part’ comes- first- from the objects. Is that right?
If yes, why is it relevant for you who or what affects first who or what?
Or, in other words, does s.th. exist because I see it or because it can be seen by me?
I think in commom usage of the word ‘exist’ people don’t really see a difference in that.

Many people don’t think very much, but if (if!) they really think that something exists, they do it in two different ways: (1) subjectively, so they think existence has merely to do with the thinking subject, and (2) objectively, so they think existence is something which has nothing to do with the thinking subject. Merely the second way is also the way to think that “waves of affectance come from the objects to affect”. If they think “they can perceive the objects”, they actually have to ask themselves, whether that objects “exist” without any subject or because of the “existence” of the perceiving subject, so that objects don’t “exist”. I am speaking about the subject/object dualism. Is subjectivity or objectivity that what we call “reality” or is it both, so that there is no solution for the subject/object dualism?

Still I would like to have an example for s.th. what you believe that exists but doesn’t affect you or anything at all. I can not think this way.

If you think that all around you - everything except you - merely “exists” because of the fact that you are perceiving and thinking, then you can also say that there is nothing that “exists” except you, so you are either merely a subject without any object or both subject and object (or even: there is no subject and no object - because there is no difference between them).

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz once asked:
[list][list][list][list][list][list] “Warum ist überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts?”
(“Why is there anything [being] at all rather than nothing[ness]?”)
[size=80](“Seiendes” is derived from “sein” [“to be”] and means an identical mode of “being”.)[/size][list][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u]Do you know the answer?

Or think about the Indian culture/civilisation - the so called “Hinduism” (b.t.w.: I think it is more than merely „Hinduism“) - and its concept of “nirvana”. Do you exactly know what is meant by that? Non-Indian and Indian people have a different understanding of “nirvana”. Is it nothingness, nonentity? (That is the way how Western people understand “nirvana”.) What is it?

Are “affectance” and nothingness perhaps the same? And if so: why? Just because we are able to think the nothingness? Or is the reverse true?

If there is nothing, then there is also no “affectance”. If there is no “affectance”, then there is nothing. The former is true! But is the latter also true?

And do you always think that there is “affectance” everywhere and nothing else? Do you really always think that?

What do you think when you are anxious and don’t know the reason - the cause - for that fact? What or who “affects” you then? Is it the nothingness? And if so, then the nothingness also “affects”, but is it then really nothingness?

We can think the nothingness and the difference between subject and object. Is this difference the nothingness? Or is it even the “affectance”? Or both? Are they the same (see above) or at least similar? If so, then we can’t know anything of them because it is the definition - the linguistic convention or the lingusitic laws - of the word “nothing” to be nothing at all, and the noun for that is “nothingness”.

You can’t just brush aside our ability for thinking the nothingness and the subject/object dualism.

So James’ “RM:AO” has an objective character; the terms “rational metaphysics” and “affectance ontology” claim to be objective, and they are objective. But what about James himself? Is he a part of that objective issue? Is he not present when he argues objectively? And what about the nothingness?

Can you give an example of something that exists, yet has absolutely no affect on anything? Name something for me.

So do you believe that a box only exists when it is being observed? Or that its actual size depends on what someone thought its size was? And if they change their mind, the box changes its size?

Firstly, it doesn’t really matter what ALL people do, but in my experience, I have never found anyone who, after being questioned, can name anything that they believe exists, and yet also believe that same thing has absolutely no affect.

A “declared definition” means that in this ontology (RM:AO), the word is going to mean what it is defined as. Other people can use that same word in many other ways. But in RM:AO, any time the word “exist” is used, it means “having affect”.

Those are another subject. Which came first and which affects which, are separate details from the issue of what it means to exist within the ontology.

By definition, “Affectless affect” is an oxymoron. So no, an “affectless affect” could not exist any more than a “square circle”.

No. An unmoved mover would be something that never moved, but moved something else. An “affectless affect” would be an affect that had no affect. If it had no affect, then it wouldn’t be an affect.

Or are you meaning to ask if there is an “unaffected affect”? That would be a different question but again, is a separate issue from what it means to exist.

I’m not concerned with what “other cultures” might do. They might do anything.

No. “Absolute nothingness” is the “lack of affect”.

???
I don’t know how many worms are in Zinnat’s apple.
Do I have reason to care?

Yes.
It is mathematically impossible for absolute zero affect to be a state or condition at any time, in any place.

Irrelevant.

They are exact opposite. Affectance is the lack of nothingness and Nothingness is the lack of affectance.

I don’t just “think that”, I know that to be incontestable.

But realize that I am talking about one ontology, RM:AO. Many forms of affectance can come together and be named as entities, such as a particle or an atom. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are still merely a clumps of affectance. Literally everything, including the “vacuum” of space is made of affectance.

The thought of nothingness, is not nothingness.
The feeling of something missing, is not the feel of nothing, but rather the lack of the feel of something.
And the lack of a touch, is not the touch of a lack.

I don’t understand what is being asked.

Well, I certainly “can”. But the question is whether I really have to. So far, I’m not seeing those as relevant to anything - yet.

Again, what is the relevance? Define “objective” and you have your answer.
RM:AO doesn’t bother with declaring “objective” versus “subjective”. It’s not relevant until someone gets confused. And frankly, it is a bit like asking if “RM:AO is red, blue, or is it colorless? And if it is colorless, how can we see it or know that it exists?”

Yes I can, provided that you agree to my thesis that our thoughts exist and especially the nothingness exists as well - exists without “having affect” of course ( :exclamation: ) -, but I know that you don’t agree to that thesis because you are saying that “exist” means “having affect”, so that “existence” is “affectance”. Would you agree to the thesis, that other people don’t agree to your definition of “existence” as “affectance”?

Nothingness has no affect, else it would be no nothingness. And if nothingness were no nothingness, then we would have to find another word for nothingness, and we soon would have find one because we can think nothingness. Nothingness has no affect, but exists, at least in our thoughts, and our thoughts exist as well. That all depends on the definition, so your definition has to be a different one - and is a different one (I know) -, but if your definition is right, then you have to exclude nothingness from your definition of “existence”.

I don’t believe that but I also don’t deny that it is possible. If someone believes that, I would not say that it is absolutely wrong to believe that. Remember that we are philophising, and the philosophy has not resolved the problem of the subject/object dualism. The science can’t resolve it anyway, and I think the philosophy probably neither.

Don’t get me wrong because I don’t think that your ontology is false, but you have to admit that it depends on your definition of “existence”.

Yes, as I said.

Does God exist? Does the unmoved mover exist? Does the unaffected affect exist?

It is possible that the nothingness is God, or the unmoved mover, or the unaffected affect!

Can you really think of nothingness? Even the thought of nothingness requires an imagination of nothingness. Is it black, bright, colourless? Doesn’t it have to be limited by “something”. Can you have a thought without an imagination how it looks, smells, tastes, feels…? And as soon as you have an imagination, it affects you, it is not nothing anymore. Nothingness is just a word.
Could I have another example?

I am sure that someone could be found who would argue with literally anything I said. What does that have to do with anything?

I agree that thoughts exist (and thoughts have affect). I already explained that by definition, nothingness does not exist. And has nothing to do with whether existence is affectance. The word “nothingness” already means “non-existence”.

No. It doesn’t exist.

One can have a thought of a unicorn. That doesn’t mean that the unicorn exists, but rather merely the thought of it. Something doesn’t have to exist in order for someone to think about it.

Yes, I had already done that.

In other words, you don’t know whether it is true or not. This is an issue of the ontology called “Solipsism”, not RM:AO.

Every understanding (ontology) depends on its definition of existence. You can’t have an ontology without its definition of existence. It wouldn’t be an ontology without one.

And there can be many ontologies with different definitions of existence yet all of them be equally valid and true. RM:AO sets its definition for existence as “that which has affect”. Other ontologies can define “existence” in other ways. That isn’t an issue.

Define “God”.
The “unmoved mover” is a Situation that does not change yet causes change. Specifically, it is the situation of an affect attempting to reach infinity. Or it can be said to the a Fact, specifically, the fact that infinity cannot be reached. In either case, situation or fact, the propagation of an affect changes because of it.

This is where Plato’s “divine” meets the “mortal”, or the conceptual meets the physical. A fact is a concept which has no physical existence. For a fact to be the cause of anything, an instance of the fact must occur or form and that is when it becomes a situation. And because of the situation involving the fact, physical changes occur, affects take place. Thus it is said that the fact “causes” physical change. But it is a language issue because in reality it isn’t the fact itself, the concept, but the instance of the fact occurring in physical form (a situation) that has the affect. That issue has caused a lot of confusion in the past, but it is merely a language issue.

No. Or not unless you have a strange definition for “God”. Since “God” is defined as the creator (and thus Affecter) of physical existence, God cannot be “Nothingness”. Nothingness does not cause anything, or it wouldn’t be nothingness. God is a Primary Principle (or “fact”) said to be the cause of all other facts and physical reality, “The First Cause” (meaning the most primary cause).

The question was not meant mathematically. Leibniz, the founder of the infinitesimal calculus and e.g. of the first calculating machine, was one of the greatest mathematician (the greatest: Carl Friedrich Gauß ), technician, and philosopher, so his question was not meant mathematically, but philospophically, theologically.

James, I know your “RM:AO”, thus I also know that according to RM:AO “affectance” and nothingness are exact the opposite. So my questions are not always questions of understanding “RM:AO”.

I never said that the thought of nothingness is nothingness.

There is an unknown or undefined difference and there is an unknown or undefined nothingness. If we don’t know much about the difference and about the nothimgness, then one can ask whether they are the same or not.

No. You and your ontology are not the same. In any case defining “objective” is not enough.

Nothingness is not just a word. What about God? Is he just a word? What about something like an unmoved mover or an unaffected affect?

Even if “RM:AO” would be able to explain everything objectively, remains a rest.

Does God exist? Does the unmoved mover exist? Does an unaffected affect exist?

Yes, and …?

That was not what I was saying. I was saying that YOUR ontology depends on YOUR definition of “existence”. The accent is on the word “your”.

God is the first cause, the primary cause, the cause of all reality, of all existence.

The unmoved mover causes change.

Philosophy is about reasoning. Reasoning is about logic. When logic is applied to quantities, it is called “mathematics”. Since the question was one of quantity, I’m sure Leibniz knew it as a question of mathematics.

What he didn’t know was how it is that logic leads to substance. It appears that no one during that era could understand that issue. RM:AO explains it.

You don’t need RM:AO to know that affectance is the opposite of nothingness, or perhaps better said as “the lack of nothingness”.

???
But we DO know much about the difference and the nothingness. :confusion-scratchheadyellow:

I believe that by defining “objective” the answer is obvious.

I thought that I already explained that;

And solipsism is a pointless (irrational) ontology, not to mention incomplete. In solipsism, everything is within the mind, but it doesn’t explain what the mind is in, nor even what a mind is. By explaining either of those, the notion that everything is within the mind is dissolved.

???
Did you have a better definition?
I don’t understand why you are making the statements.

@ Arminius


“NOTHINGNESS”

Farlex Free Dictionary: „The condition or quality of being nothing; nonexistence.“

Merriam-Webster: „The quality or state of being nothing,as
a) NONEXISTENCE
b) utter insignificance
c) Death

Oxford Dictionary: " The absence or cessation of life or existence

Dictionary.com: a) the state of being nothing
b) something that is nonexistent
c) lack of being, nonexistence

Yes, I know, but I am just philosophising.

That is also well known to me. But “nothingness” is a word with a various definition or concept, so it is worth to philosophise, and I am just philosophising here in this forum, which is an philosophy forum; else I would not doubt the “mainstream” meaning of - fo example - the “time arrow”, the “big bang”, the “inflation of the universe”, or also the “nothingness”.

So my question now is whether you agree that “nothingness” doesn’t exist, by definition. And more importantly to me, why it could never be the state of the universe (Metaphysics is all about the “Why?” question)?

According to your ontology I agree „that »nothingness« doesn’t exist, by definition“ and that „it could never be the state of the universe“. But I reserve the right, that there are other definitions and possibilities.

There are certainly other definitions. But someone defining something is not the same as it being possible. The possibility issue is one of logic or mathematics.

And btw, in that step (1) in that list concerning the fundamentals of RM:AO, the sub-letters (a)-(d) are offered as incentive for accepting the declared definition for sake of the ontology. They are not offered as proof of anything. The concept is that if one doesn’t accept that an existent thing must have affect, then he is being irrational, but not necessarily wrong. That is why it was named “Rational Metaphysics”, because it is of use (rational) to declare that anything with no affect doesn’t exist. We don’t care if it exists as long as it has absolutely no affect on anything. So it is an issue of being rational rather than wildly speculative.

An affect with a potential-to-affect - that’s tautological. You couldn’t find another word for “affect”, could you?