Proving the existence of Nothing
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Original Question
Discussing the implications of Referentialism, this came up:
If i cut your hair off and touch it, you feel nothing.
If you feel nothing, nothing can exist in at least this special case.
(Avoiding Special Pleading by supposedly giving a sufficient reason)
Therefore Nothing exists in some way.
With the above conclusion, the sentence "I don't feel anything" becomes logically acceptable, even though not feeling anything is the same as feeling nothing.
This then brings us to my biggest issue "if you can't feel anything, then you don't feel anything. That's what feeling nothing means. It doesn't mean you feel something called nothing. It means you don't feel anything."
The effective definition of Nothing here is "Absence of something".
My head says that's not possible. What i think is that if for something to be Nothing, the only condition is that "Something" isn't present in the object of description, then a lot of things would be Nothing. For example, if i take a water bottle and determine that it should be completely full, but it isn't, i can then claim that the bottle is Nothing, and not a bottle. And if the bottle is Nothing and also a bottle (Somehow), then wouldn't most things also be Nothing, thus rendering Nothing superfluous (Under the definition given)?
I believe my thinking might be fallacious but i just can't see it, and i've been going mad these few days.
If i cut your hair off and touch it, you feel nothing.
If you feel nothing, nothing can exist in at least this special case.
(Avoiding Special Pleading by supposedly giving a sufficient reason)
Therefore Nothing exists in some way.
With the above conclusion, the sentence "I don't feel anything" becomes logically acceptable, even though not feeling anything is the same as feeling nothing.
This then brings us to my biggest issue "if you can't feel anything, then you don't feel anything. That's what feeling nothing means. It doesn't mean you feel something called nothing. It means you don't feel anything."
The effective definition of Nothing here is "Absence of something".
My head says that's not possible. What i think is that if for something to be Nothing, the only condition is that "Something" isn't present in the object of description, then a lot of things would be Nothing. For example, if i take a water bottle and determine that it should be completely full, but it isn't, i can then claim that the bottle is Nothing, and not a bottle. And if the bottle is Nothing and also a bottle (Somehow), then wouldn't most things also be Nothing, thus rendering Nothing superfluous (Under the definition given)?
I believe my thinking might be fallacious but i just can't see it, and i've been going mad these few days.
Answers
2I don't really see a fallacy issue here. This is more a matter of metaphysics. Have you read Sartre's "Being and Nothingness?" If not, well, it's long and boring. But very good.
Or, a little shorter, there's this article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/
This, however, is my all-time favorite:
http://www.nothing.com/Heath.html
Food for thought?
Or, a little shorter, there's this article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/
This, however, is my all-time favorite:
http://www.nothing.com/Heath.html
Food for thought?
"Nothing" doesn't exist. We use the term to describe the concept of the absence of something.
What is "cold"? It's the absence of heat. "cold" doesn't actually exist. We can't measure it. Instead, we measure heat.
What is darkness? It's the absence of light. We can't measure darkness because it doesn't exist, but we can measure light because it does exist.
When you cut my hair and I feel nothing, I'm merely using that phrase to mean I don't feel pain or a particular sensation. It's the absence of feeling.
Your thinking was reasonable until you got to the last paragraph and starting applying "nothing" to things that are empty, then it turned fallacious. The container is different from the thing that it can contain. They are separate entities. An object being empty doesn't result in the object being "nothing" - it's still a thing but merely "empty".
If I hold a red soccer ball, that doesn't make me a red soccer ball, does it? In the same way if a bottle has "nothing" in it, it doesn't make the water bottle "nothing".
The container doesn't become the thing contained. That's the principle that will fix the problem for you.
What is "cold"? It's the absence of heat. "cold" doesn't actually exist. We can't measure it. Instead, we measure heat.
What is darkness? It's the absence of light. We can't measure darkness because it doesn't exist, but we can measure light because it does exist.
When you cut my hair and I feel nothing, I'm merely using that phrase to mean I don't feel pain or a particular sensation. It's the absence of feeling.
For example, if i take a water bottle and determine that it should be completely full, but it isn't, i can then claim that the bottle is Nothing, and not a bottle.
You can certainly claim that, but it wouldn't be true. The bottle exists, but there's "nothing" in it. The fact that there's "nothing" in the bottle doesn't stop the bottle from existing. It doesn't turn the bottle into "nothing".Your thinking was reasonable until you got to the last paragraph and starting applying "nothing" to things that are empty, then it turned fallacious. The container is different from the thing that it can contain. They are separate entities. An object being empty doesn't result in the object being "nothing" - it's still a thing but merely "empty".
If I hold a red soccer ball, that doesn't make me a red soccer ball, does it? In the same way if a bottle has "nothing" in it, it doesn't make the water bottle "nothing".
The container doesn't become the thing contained. That's the principle that will fix the problem for you.
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