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Author | Topic: The Ultimate Question - Why is there something rather than nothing? | |||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Is Being something?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Is Being something? No, its a verb... which requires a subject, which *is* a thing, which "nothing" cannot be.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
So where is the inconsistency then?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Requiring "nothing" to be a thing that has the capacity for being.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
CS writes: Requiring "nothing" to be a thing that has the capacity for being. Who says "nothing" has to be?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Who says "nothing" has to be? Its implicit in the question, itself. Why is something being rather than nothing being... Because nothing can't be.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Before you can insist that nothingness is a state of being you first need to define both "nothing" and what it means to "exist" (or be).
Good frikkin luck with that......
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
The question insists it.
But oh well, I was asking the OP to support their assertion that it is consistant so I'm not too worried about supporting the position that it isn't.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I think the whole thing is pretty meaningless personally.
But it is fun to talk bollocks sometimes.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Why not? That's the route I'd take... Well, give it a go. You need to find two sentences that describe such a state of affairs one of which is the negation of the other. But where are the sentences to be about?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Well, give it a go. You need to find two sentences that describe such a state of affairs one of which is the negation of the other. But where are the sentences to be about? I was more interested in your reason for saying it isn't. But here you go: 'No-thing' is indicating a lack of a subject. The verb "to be" is indicating the presence of a subject. Nothing cannot be.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I was more interested in your reason for saying it isn't. Well, the absence of things for there to be mutually inconsistent statements about.
I was more interested in your reason for saying it isn't. But here you go: 'No-thing' is indicating a lack of a subject. The verb "to be" is indicating the presence of a subject. Nothing cannot be. Can there be a complete absence of unicorns in my back yard? By your reasoning, no. "Complete absence", you would tell us, "indicates a lack of a subject", and "be", you say "indicates the presence of a subject" ... so an absence of unicorns cannot be. Well then, where are the unicorns? You're just confusing yourself with grammar. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
quote: I was more interested in your reason for saying it isn't.
Well, the absence of things for there to be mutually inconsistent statements about. Huh? That didn't make any sense. Can you phrase that differently? We're talking about "nothing" existing That don't make no sense!
Can there be a complete absence of unicorns in my back yard? By your reasoning, no. "Complete absence", you would tell us, "indicates a lack of a subject", and "be", you say "indicates the presence of a subject" ... so an absence of unicorns cannot be. Well then, where are the unicorns? There are not any unicorns being in your backyard. But 'an absense of unicorns' doesn't exist in your backyard. That's nonsensical, imho.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Huh? That didn't make any sense. Can you phrase that differently? Yes. Look, what we need for a contradiction is a thing X and a predicate P such that P(X) & ~P(X). But if there is no X, then there is no X that fits that condition. For example, we could rule out a universe in which the following propositions were true: (1) Apples and oranges exist.(2) Citrus fruit do not exist. ... since from these propositions, plus the definition of an orange as a citrus fruit, we can logically deduce the existence of at least one entity that is a citrus fruit and is not a citrus fruit. How are we going to do that sort of thing when the nonexistence of things is our premise?
There are not any unicorns being in your backyard. But 'an absense of unicorns' doesn't exist in your backyard. That's nonsensical, imho. Well, it's English. There is a complete absence of unicorns = There are not any unicorns. And in the same way: There is a complete absence of things = There are not any things. The grammatical structure of the phrase in English doesn't really cast any light on its meaning or its possibility.
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Black Cat Junior Member (Idle past 4641 days) Posts: 28 From: Canada Joined: |
It doesn't appear to me that W.L.C mis-represented Dawkins. He was summarizing Dawkins' arguments not quoting him directly. Can you please explain to me how how Craig's summarization sentence affected or distorted what Dawkins actually wrote? Is it because he didn't include the words "so far"?
Edited by Black Cat, : No reason given. Edited by Black Cat, : No reason given.
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