{"id":4017,"date":"2019-01-07T04:07:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T04:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/07\/if-nothing-exists-is-it-true-that-nothing-exists\/"},"modified":"2019-01-07T04:07:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T04:07:43","slug":"if-nothing-exists-is-it-true-that-nothing-exists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/07\/if-nothing-exists-is-it-true-that-nothing-exists\/","title":{"rendered":"If Nothing Exists, is it True that Nothing Exists? Well Yes, but Then . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a puzzle for London Ed and anyone else who finds it interesting. It is very simple, an aporetic dyad.<\/span><\/p>\n

To warm up, note that if snow is white, then it is true that snow is white.  This seems quite unexceptionable, a nice, solid, datanic starting point. It generalizes, of course: for any proposition p, if p, then it is true that p.  Now the connection between antecedent and consequent is so tight that we are loathe to say that it just happens to hold.  It holds of necessity.  So here is the first limb of our aporetic dyad:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

a) Necessarily, for any p, if p, then it is true that p.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Equivalently: there is no possible world in which both p and it is not true that p.  For example, there is no possible world in which both 7 + 5 = 12 and it is not true that 7 + 5 = 12.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intuitively, though, there might have been nothing at all.  Is it not possible that nothing exists? Things exist, of course. But might it not be that everything that exists exists contingently? If so, then there might never have existed anything. Our second limb, then, is this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

b) Possibly, nothing exists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Equivalently: There is at least one possible world in which nothing exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both limbs of the dyad are plausible, but they can't both be true.  To see this, substitute 'nothing exists' for 'p' in (a) and drop the universal quantifier and the modal operator. This yields:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

c) If nothing exists, then it is true that nothing exists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But (c) can't be true in every world given (b).  For if (c) is true, then something does exist, namely, the truth (true proposition) that nothing exists. But (c) is true in every world given (a).<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore (a) and (b) cannot both be true: the dyad is logically inconsistent.<\/span><\/p>\n

So something has to give, assuming we are not willing to accept that the dyad is an aporia<\/em> in the strict sense, a conceptual impasse that stops the discursive intellect dead in its tracks.  A-poria<\/em>: no way.  Do we reject (a) or do we reject (b)? If a solution is possible, then I am inclined to reject (b).<\/span><\/p>\n

But then I must affirm its negation:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

d) Necessarily, something (or other) exists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Note that if it is necessary that something exist, it does not follow that some one thing necessarily exists. If there is no possible world in which nothing exists, it does not follow that there is some one thing that exists in every world.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Yikes! Have I just proven by a priori<\/em> reasoning the necessary existence of something or other outside the mind?  Of course, I have not proven the necessary existence of God; I may have proven only the necessary existence of those abstract objects called propositions.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Father Parmenides, with open arms, welcomes home his prodigal son?)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a puzzle for London Ed and anyone else who finds it interesting. It is very simple, an aporetic dyad. To warm up, note that if snow is white, then it is true that snow is white.  This seems quite unexceptionable, a nice, solid, datanic starting point. It generalizes, of course: for any proposition … Continue reading “If Nothing Exists, is it True that Nothing Exists? Well Yes, but Then . . .”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,142,218,228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aporetics","category-existence","category-nothingness","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}