Definitions: Thing - The most fundamental noun of language. It cannot be defined without using itself as a definition. The only thing that can be said about it is that “it is” or “it exists” or “is real”, and possibly even that cannot be said about it. Nothing - A thing that is not a thing. Axiom 1: “Nothing” is a concept that is a logical contradiction and therefore does not and cannot exist. A thing cannot not be a thing. Conclusion: If “nothing” does not exist then there is no real separation between anything and so the universe is still in a singularity, just with a lesser density. The idea of “self” and “others” then is completely an illusion.
Wrong; nothing - not any thing(This "thing" includes matter that we have not defined as things (aka dirt etc) thing isn't fundamental, it's a category often used when the subject of conversation isn't considered important enough for it's own word. Don't mix language with philosphy, btw, language is a communication protocol(very practical), philosophy is about meaning, about what is important and about disregarding the more practical tools(language) in this pastime.
That was basically the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides' argument. (He actually lived in pre-Roman Italy, but he was a Greek.) He argued, in effect, that non-existence doesn't exist. Then he tried to spin that axiom of his into the idea that being can't come into or go out of existence, hence true being must be eternal. He also argued that being can't have limits or boundaries, hence in reality there can only be one infinite being. And then he concluded that all of the apparent "reality" that we perceive around us is just illusion, since it is composed of transitory things that have boundaries and limits. It's interesting that very similar ideas also appeared in India. It isn't clear whether they were thought up independently in both places, or whether thinkers in both places had some knowledge of each other. But since Greek and Indian styles of thinking and intellectual fashions often seemed to happen in parallel, I'd say there probably were back-and-forth influences that weren't recorded in history. Today, the idea that true reality is one eternal unlimited being, and that our apparent world of flux, limitation and change is just an illusion, still forms the basis of one strand of Hindu philosophy, Advaita Vedanta. As for me, my opinion is that while it's an attractive (if paradoxical) idea, I don't think that it's very plausible. There seems to be all kinds of being out there, and I'm not convinced that thinking that particular beings to have limits, boundaries and beginnings and ends commits us to denying that there are other kinds of being before, after or outside. (Parmenides would have probably retorted that even if the rest of reality is still out there, if any particular being X ceases to exist, then that particular being would then be non-existent, and non-existence doesn't exist!) I'm not even convinced that there can't be any absolute limit, a boundary at which everything terminates. (Space, time, everything.) We would just have to say that reality extends to that limit and no further. If somebody asks the inevitable question, 'ok, so what's beyond the boundary', the answer would be, there's no 'beyond the boundary'. That limit marks the limit of reality itself and the whole idea of what's beyond it is meaningless. Some interpretations of the 'big bang' are kind of like that.
Sez who? Why not "place," "event" or "idea?" I guess they don't have Dictionary.com in your country. They managed to define it by use of two different words: object and entity. How about "it inspires us," or "we like it," or "the Russians use it but we don't"? You have a really strange dictionary in your country. Over here ours says: Geeze, you really need to petition your country's government to buy a better dictionary. An axiom is a self-evident truth that requires no explanation. Your statement is a deduction. Not to mention: it's false, because it's based on incorrect definitions of common words and flawed reasoning. I'm not even going to bother with your conclusion, since it's based on faulty premises and derived by faulty logic. Next time you feel like doing something like this, please post it on the Linguistics subforum. That's where we argue about words. Fraggle Rocker Moderator, Linguistics
C'mon Fraggle. The young thing is all entusiastic about language, and you're trying to bring him down. How about some encouragement? You ought to be proud of him for appreciating la beauté de la langue anglaise! (pardon my French)
I think that 'thing' works very well for the purposes of stateofmind's argument. 'Thing' kind of suggests any kind of object of speech or thought. Its range of applicability seemingly extends to any possible kind of being, from 'physical object' to 'idea'. Stateofmind was defining the word 'thing' for the purposes of his argument. Educated people often define how they will be using particular words at the beginning of their arguments. That's a routine practice in subjects like philosophy and law. That's just foolish. I don't know (or particularly care) what country stateofmind lives in. If his posts are good, then how does that matter? (The question is rhetorical, don't bother answering it.) Stateofmind might have used the word 'premise', as in something assumed for the sake of argument. But given the shape of what preceeded his use of the word, 'axiom' isn't out of place either. He's basically saying that 'nothing' (not being a thing) isn't a 'thing'. Translated into logical terms, that might be something like saying that: Thing and ~Thing are contradictories (they can't both be true or false at the same time). That appears to be a logical truth, so stateofmind's use of 'axiom' seems to work. If there's a difficulty there, it will require more than sarcasm to get at what it is. What's the flaw? I'm not saying that there aren't any flaws (I'm kind of undecided on that), I'm asking you to explain what you believe the flaws are. (That's how philosophy is done.) I think that the conclusion probably is the weakest part, not only of stateofmind's argument, but of Parmenides' very similar argument as well. The idea that everything collapses together into one when understood correctly arises from the observation that boundaries mark out what is and isn't X. But if we interpret what isn't X as the non-existence of X, and if we think that we have already established that non-existence doesn't exist (because it's seemingly a logical contradiction), then it would seem that things can't have temporal, spatial or even conceptual boundaries. That in turn suggests that there can't be any distinctions between things. That was Parmenides' argument, at any rate. This is the philosophy forum, where we argue about philosophy. People should be encouraged to post their philosophical ideas, they shouldn't be insulted and ridiculed when they do so. That's doubly true when the ideas are good ones. As I pointed out in post #7, stateofmind basically re-created Parmenides' famous argument, which is very cool indeed. Stateofmind deserves our respect for that, not put-downs. What's more, the idea itself is entirely worthy of philosophical discussion. Plato took Parmenides very seriously, as did the atomists like Democritus. To some extent, their own philosophies can be interpreted as replies to the challenges that Parmenides had erected in their path. (If it's good enough for Plato, it's good enough for Sciforums.)
Nevertheless, the separations provided by space, time, motion, systemic arrangements, and a variety of distinction-yielding characteristics in the sciences are present in perceptions and understandings concerning the extrospective world exhibited by consciousness. As long as those individuations are intersubjectively available to or even experimentally derivable by a majority of people (as opposed to being purely private affairs or imaginations), then the ontological pluralism displayed by the experienced world is what should hold a higher status of "real". We don't live in, or have immediate validation of living in, the appearance-less nothingness of a speculated about monism's homogeneous / foundational stratum. The conscious mind's so-called "illusion" of the many is what "real" would have originally been extracted from by pre-philosophical tribes, before metaphysics and ancient rationalist schools confiscated it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The dictum of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic school to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this formula: "All cognition through the senses and experience is nothing but sheer illusion, and only, in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason there is truth." The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in experience is there truth." --Immanuel Kant
