On 2/1/2012 7:57 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 10:47 PM, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 1/31/2012 8:43 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Regarding the "philosopher's nothing": This present moment exists, and it has no cause since our universe is a four dimensional structure (time is a subjective phenomenon). This timeless existence of this moment establishes that "nothingness" cannot exist. In short: It is an impossible state. The question then becomes: "Why should this present moment exist, and what else might also exist?" So far, the answer suggested by our latest discoveries and reasoning suggests: a lot. JasonOr to paraphrase Quine: What is there? Everything. So what isn't there? Nothing. BrentI don't quite agree with that paraphrasing. My point was that there is no such thing as a philosopher's nothing, not that everything exists. Such a leap would require the additional assumption that "Nothingness" is only thing that does not exist. All I said was that "nothingness" is an impossible state. This is the conclusion of accepting a four-dimensional/atemporal existence, as suggested by relativity.
I agree. But I don't think it depends on spacetime being four dimensional (which is good since it has a lot more dimensions in some theories; some even have two time dimensions). Quine didn't think that 'everything exists' as it's used on this list. He just meant 'Everything that exists is what there is'.
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