From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 2:13 AM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: Science & atheism are cultures. > "Paul Holbach" wrote: > > > I don't see that at all. You might as well have said > > "what you call a stone is pretty close to a sheer metaphor." > > Well, if a trivial thing such as a stone is as readily comprehensible > to you as the opaque notion of an empty world I never said they were. I'm just saying that what I call a world is nowhere near a sheer metaphor. > interpreting the purely abstract concept of the empty set as a > possible representation of a possibe state of the real world is an > illicit act of reification. Every set is "purely abstract" in some sense, and for every world there is a corresponding logical model with a "purely abstract" domain set. Why is it "an illicit act of reification" to say that for one world the domain set of the corresponding logical model is empty? > (BTW, both Lewis and Armstrong believe that an absolutely empty world > is logically inaccessible) Do they give any particular reason why? > My central belief is that the world is not the mere > container of being, which might be being successively emptied You can't seem to rid yourself of the spatial metaphor of world/universe. A world needn't imply a space -- of any dimensionality! A world is just a thing that can be formally modeled with a domain set and a list of propositions about the objects in that set. > To answer your second question, "Nothing(-ness) exists." is indeed > logically equivalent to "Everything does not exist." By employing > quantifiers (since "to exist" is a second-order predicate), the latter > reads as follows: > > For all x, x possesses the positive property p and if for some x, x > possesses p, then for no x, x possesses p. In the empty world, x cannot be bound, because the domain set is empty. > Youīre such an unwavering champion of modal realism, so why donīt you > even trust Lewisī judgment who has unequivocally discarded the idea of > the absolutely empty world: > "There can be nothing much [at a world]: just some homogeneous > unoccupied spacetime, or maybe only a single point of it. But nothing > much is still something, and there isn't a world at which there's > nothing at all." (On the Plurality of Worlds,p.73) Lewis may have a good reason for saying this, but until I hear of such a reason, I won't simply take his word for it. > > As I said: "I note that the definition of model I > > cite above stipulates that the domain set be non-empty, but > > I don't see anything self-contradictory in it being empty." > > You explicitly assume that a "state of affairs" must include at > > least one object, but don't (as far as I can tell) attempt to > > justify this assumption. > > Well, "I-donīt-see-ism" isnīt an elaborate epistemological method of > justification either, is it...?! - Peace, brother :-)! If someone asserts X, and X has no visible justification, then parsimony demands I not believe X. Call parsimony "I-don't-see-ism" or any other name, but I'll still employ it. > The phrase "state of affairs", if regarded as distinct from > "propositional content", is kind of an onto-logical primitive implying > the existence of objects and monadic&polyadic relations. This is merely a restatement of your assumption that "state of affairs" must include at least one object. > "Object subtraction" within a possible world isnīt completely feasible > such that no object at all remains. Why not? Just remove objects until the domain set is empty. > > You're blatantly assuming our nomological conservation principles as > > necessary, when of course they're contingent. > > How do you know that?! Because it's logically possible that e.g. momentum not be conserved. > the empirical fact that genuine annihilation does not ever occur > in nature is a strong argument that should make us wary of excessively > indulging in non-grounded speculation about other worlds there might > be. Possible worlds -- by definition! -- are only constrained by logical possibility, and not by the contingent details of our universe (like what you had for breakfast today). > > just what do you think is the > > minimal possible state? How many things must it contain, > > with how many properties, for how long, in how many spatial > > dimensions? > [..] > The most minimal state is most probably some kind of a > low-level, vacuum-energetic scalar field. This is to me a crystal-clear sign that your imagination is being constrained by our physical world. I can imagine a possible world consisting of a single object foo with a single property bar -- and no dimensionality, no temporality, no physical laws, nothing else. A 'world' is not just something OUR world could be by subtracting some or all particles (and events thereon) and possibly adding others. A world is, rather, anything that can be described with a non-self-contradictory model. > > Nothingness is just > > like the current state of affairs, in which infinitely many > > possible things don't exist while some set of things do exist, > > except with nothingness all the things in the latter set are > > moved over into the former one. > > If something is something not, then it necessarily is something else! You're reifying nothingness again. > positive being is the only possible ontological category. I'm still not convinced that we can make a principled distinction between "positive" and "negative" properties. You never responded to my point that One expression of [a] concept might contain 'not' etc., but an equally valid expression of the concept might not. > Iīve been discussing nothing else with > you than "whether there is a possible state in which no entity could > accurately be said to exist". Good. Now, for a state to not be possible, the description of that state must contain a contradiction. Where is the contradiction in the description that consists of an empty domain set and zero propositions about the objects in that set? -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net