First my apologies to you and Brent for the mix up. I'm new to this wonderful forum, and the format still disorients me a bit...
which is why the universe exists in the first place, that is, it is not > nothing (= ontological difference). > > You wrote: That looks like a play with word, which does not mean that > there is not some truth behind, but you will have to elaborate a lot. > > Partly I am thinking of Heidegger here... not I have much respect for him > as a philosopher, on the contrary... but in the early phase of his career > he had some nice ideas, such as this one about ontological difference: > Being (with capital "B") as that which lets beings be is not itself a > being, it is rather a kind of Nothing which acts like a counter foil to > beings: we experience beings as existing because we can contrast them with > the Nothing which is revealed to us through Angst and our > being-unto-death... > > Heidegger's approach to nothing is of course thoroughly > existentialist-phenomenological... According to me, this means that he > never really broke away from Kantian subjectivism: beings as phenomena > remain dependent on the subject's (Dasein's) orientation to the nothingness > of death... I would rather opt for an objectivist approach to nothing, as > 'something' that 'exists' independently and prior to human beings (and > indeed as prior to the universe as a whole). > > My reasoning in this regard is very basic. To explain why there is > something rather than nothing we have to start with nothing, since > otherwise we end up either in an infinite regress or a vicious circle. That > is, as long as we start from some primordial being (e.g. God or the > Platonic realm of eternal truths) as the cause of all other beings, we > still have to explain why that primordial being existed/exists in the first > place. And then we have to postulate either a still more primordial being > (regress) or suppose that the primordial being is self-causing, which seems > absurd. The only possibility, then, is to start with the concept of nothing > and see if we can explain being on that basis. > > Plotinus too describes the One as a kind of nothing but in my view that's > because he holds a apophatic theology, where the One transcends our > conceptual capacities, so we can only conceive it as a nothing whereas in > fact it is rather the opposite, an ontological plenitude. So in my view, a > neo-Platonic approach is still not radical enough, its conception of > nothing is still not the absolute nothing with which we have to start if we > want to answer Leibniz' question (Heidegger would say: Plotinus is still > onto-theology, the confusion of Being with a being). > > So how to go from the absolute nothing to being? Here my intuition is that > nothing is a self-negating 'quantity' which as such 'produces' being. I > know that's terribly vague and even a bit mystical, and I'm struggling to > make it more precise. I thought I had found one indication for this point > of view in the idea of the zero-energy universe, where positive and > negative energy precisely cancel each other out, so that perhaps we can > describe the origination of the universe as a kind of splitting of 0 into 1 > and -1 (i.e. into positive and negative energy). But now I've learned from > the contributions on this forum that the idea of the zero-energy universe > is much more problematic than figures like Hawking and Krauss make it > appear. What I also found very congenial is the notion of quantum > fluctuation, with particle-antipartice pairs popping into existence from > the fluctuating 'zero'-energy level of the vacuum (I wonder: is the energy > of the vacuum positive or negative or neither?). But as you also suggested, > the vacuum is not the absolute nothing since the vacuum is spatial and > seething with quantum activity. Anyway, I still feel that this splitting of > the vacuum into particles andd antiparticles fits hand in glove with a > dialectical approach to nothing as self-negating (for on that account, > nothing is both itsef and its own antibeing of sorts). But I admit, these > are just highly speculative intutions. > > As for the contradiction inherent in the concept of nothing, this seems to > be a well-known idea, thought hard to make precise. Carnap of course > famously argued against Heidegger that his concept of nothing is > inconsistent. Partly Carnap's reasoning goes as follows: define Nothing as > N such that if x exists then x is not equal to N, so if N exists (i.e. if N > = x) then N is not N, hence a contradiction. > > Carnap, of course, takes this to show that the concept of nothing is > nonsensical. But given the fact that we can only answer Leibniz' question > by starting with nothing, I think we have to see this contradiction as an > objective reality which explains why there is being at all. > > I thought I had also found a way to show the inconsistency of nothing > through set theory, but that too turns out to be more complicated than I > expected. The reasoning is quite simple and goes as follows: First consider > the axiom of extensionality: sets are identical iff they have all their > elements in common. Then consider the empty set and note that, since it > doesn't have any elements, it can't have elements in common with itself, so > it is disjoint with itself. But then from the axiom of extensionality it > follows that the empty set is not identical with itself! But as it turns > out, it seems that the axiom of extensionality is formulated in such a way > that this contradiction cannot arise. Still, the fact that the empty set > has no elements makes it in my view a very troublesome set with no clear > identity-conditions. The late philosopher E.J. Lowe argued something > similar and concluded that set theory should do away with the empty set. I > wouldn't argue that, however, since I'm quite smitten with the > set-theoretic derivation of math recursively from the empty set (the Von > Neumann approach). Perhaps what I am looking for is a kind of > paraconsistent approach to the empty set, where it is precisely the > contradiction in the concept of the empty set that will allow us to derive > math from it. > > In this regard I am also intrigued by Frege's definition of the empty set > as the set of all things that are not self-identical. Though I am not sure > if from this it follows that the empty set too is not self-identical. After > all, the set of all cars is not itself a car. On the other hand, if we > define sets extensionally, and we adopt Frege's definition, than the > extension of the empty set is not-self-identical, which then seems to imply > that the set itself is not-self-identical as well. > > Of course, if we start with a contradiction, then ex falso sequitur > quodlibet and the entire system will be vitiated. Unless we find a way to > somehow contain the contradiction of the empty set (or nothing). My > intuition here is that dialectics may be of use here. It seems clear to me > that we can say: since nothing is inconsistent, and since being is the > negation of nothing, being must be consistent. > > I wish I could develop such ideas in a more formal fashion. Perhaps > looking into paraconsistent set theory might be of use. If you have any > suggestions I would be very much obliged. I am not in any way connected to > a university. I got a PhD in philosophy in 2000, but I did not have an > academic career. So forums like this one are the only means I have for > discussing these things with others and I am sincerely grateful for that! > > Also thanks for you paper. I will certainly read it (i.e. I will attempt > to read it, since math and formal logic are not my forte, unfortunately). > The very idea of a computational approach to neo-platonism certainly seems > very original. By the way, I am not such a philosopher who is averse to a > scientific approach, quite the contrary, as you may have guessed already. I > do think however that presupposing a mathematical reality from which > physical somehow derives is still not enough to answer Leibniz' question, > for why then is there the mathematical reality to begin with? We can say > logic and math are timelessly true, but I think we still want to know why > that is so. Moreover: there is also a certain subjectivity involved here, > since WE think they are timeless because WE cannot imagine a situation in > which logic and math were not true, but then the timelessness is predicated > on our cognitive limitations, which does not show that math and logic are > in themselves timelessly true. > > Peter > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
