RE: Being can come from non-being
December 6, 2019 at 6:21 am
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2019 at 6:32 am by ThinkingIsThinking.)
(December 4, 2019 at 7:01 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(December 4, 2019 at 5:56 am)ThinkingIsThinking Wrote: It's possible to describe impossible properties when making an argument.
If X has the property of 'not being able to be anything' then X does not exist.
We can obviously describe that which can't exist. For example "A square that has five sides ... doesn't exist." Just because I mentioned an impossible shape doesn't mean the shape is at all possible.
It's BECAUSE unbeing has the property of 'not being anything' that we're describing something that can't exist.
Nothing keeps it in the state of unbeing but only because there is no it. Because we're talking of an impossibility. It's no different to you asking "If nothing can't stop being nothing then how is it really nothing if it's BEING nothing?" well, the answer is that the idea of anything LITERALLY BEING nothing is already a contradiciton in the first place. Hence why I talk of "not being anything" rather than "being nothing" ... so there's less confusion. But it's also less confusing when you realize that all "being nothing" or "unbeing" or "being in a state of unbeing" actually means is "not being anything" and "not being in a state of being".
The problem, then, is that there is no ontologically interesting definition of "non-being"! ... either non-being isn't being and therefore can't exist or the only reason it isn't impossible is because you're labelling a type of being as non-being ... which isn't interesting at all--it's just a nonsensical redefinition.
I think you've pretty well nailed the ontological argument - trying to define God into existence.
Boru
Indeed. You can't define things into existence ... but you can rule out impossible things.
(December 4, 2019 at 10:17 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: 'From nothing, nothing comes' is an assertion, not a deduction. You can take the assertion that 'nothing can't stop being nothing' as axiomatic because it aligns with your intuitions; but it's not a fact
As Leibniz pointed out, there are truths of fact and truths of reasoning. This is a matter of the latter. "Nothing can't exist" is something that is true by definition .. not something we have to find empirical evidence of. If we could find evidence of it ... it wouldn't be nothing!
"Nothing" is precisely that which doesn't exist or refer to anything.
Quote:Presuppose that there was at some point 'not anything'.
To say that there was ever at some point 'not anything' is already a contradiction in terms. There can't be non-being. It's like saying "Suppose at some point bachelors were married". You saying that what I'm saying is "just an assertion" is like saying that when I say "No Bachelors are married" it is "just an assertion."
Quote: No matter, no energy, no time, no space.And no anything ... hence you're not talking about anything existent.
The whole point of non-being is that it can't be.
Quote: For it to 'stay nothing' that state of affairs would have to be stable.
What state of affairs? There ISN'T a state of affairs. A state of affairs is something. I already addressed this in my previous response to you. There is no such thing as 'a state of nothing' because a state is something. I pointed out that it's clear if I say 'not anything' in order to be clear what is meant by 'nothing' ... but you've slipped back into talking of nothing as if it's something again.,
You can only seem to make nothingness possible by redefining it so it's not nothingness. That's the point.
Quote: I don't think it would have been, because with no time, there can be no continuation of any given state of affairs.
Non-being doesn't have to stay in a state of non-being because non-being is not a state. It doesn't have to continue being anything because it isn't anything. The whole point is that it can't exist so why are you still talking about it like it's something rather than nothing? The whole point is that it isn't something. There is no it.
Quote:That said, I don't think there was ever a state of 'true, absolute nothingness' because the idea of it is incoherent; I think we agree on that point. It's like your five-sided square.
I know there was never a state of nothingness because it is indeed as incoherent as a five-sided square. The idea of there being non-being is exactly as incoherent as there being a four-sided shape that has five sides.
