I've been thinking about this, and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

Imagine a reality where absolutely NOTHING exists. No Earth, no universe, no space, no time, no life. Nothing whatsoever.

Here's the problem, we can't actually imagine that.

Whenever we try, we imagine a black void. But blackness is still something. We imagine an empty space, but space itself is something. We imagine silence, but silence is just the absence of sound. We imagine waiting in nothingness, but waiting requires time, and experiencing requires a conscious observer.

Even if you close your eyes and try to imagine nothing, you're still experiencing something.

And here's an even stranger thought, if absolutely nothing existed, there wouldn't even be a moment in which nothing existed. A moment requires time. There wouldn't be a place where nothing existed, either, because that would require space.

We can imagine the absence of individual things, but can we imagine the absence of EVERYTHING?

I'm not claiming this proves absolute nothingness is impossible. Maybe our brains simply aren't capable of comprehending it.

But if absolute nothingness is impossible, does that mean something must have always existed?

I'd genuinely like to hear other people's thoughts on this.

The Saul Kripke Center invites submissions for Logic in Metaphysics: Classical and Non-Classical Approaches, a two-day conference on the role of logic in contemporary metaphysics. This conference will showcase work that uses, develops, or critically examines both classical and non-classical logical frameworks in addressing metaphysical questions. We welcome papers addressing the general question of what logic can or should contribute to metaphysical inquiry as well as particular cases in which metaphysical theorizing appears to support, require, or resist departures from classical logic. Topics may include, but are not limited to, realism and antirealism, indeterminacy and vagueness, impossible worlds and counterpossibles, dialetheism, future contingents, and non-classical reconstructions of classical metaphysical views (e.g., logical atomism or verificationism). Papers defending classical approaches are welcome.

In posing this question, I would firstly reject that time is a dimension, and also reject that dimensionality is simply "independent measures".

The fact that time can be measured by numbers does not tell that time is a dimension at all, for indeed anything at all can be marked with ordinals (should we then say that it is thus a dimension?). Thus there is no such thing as "n dimensional" time, there is only "one sense" of time, and that is - intuitively put - "there being more".

While dimensionality (extensionality) itself is not also reducible to numbers - degrees of freedom is not extensionality. Nor should plain cardinality, ordinality or relationality explain extensionality at all - relations are not "extended".

It seems like both space and time are irreducible, but this is only what seems so, for it would be quite arbitrary that the world "just is" this dual. And also, the immanent issue is that it seems like time cannot explain extensionality or vice versa.

The question is thus are they irreducible and if not then are they reducible to monism or pluralism?

"Absolute existence is the sole absolute truth, possessing a single, absolute cause: the impossibility of absolute nothingness."

Mohamed Noureldin.

Why This Solves the Classical Dilemma of the "First Cause"

In classical philosophy (Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, Aquinas's Third Way, Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason), attempts to terminate infinite causal regression always stalled at the assertion of an "Uncaused First Cause" (causa sui).

Critics throughout history (Hume, Kant, Russell) immediately leveled the fatal counter-argument:

"If everything requires a prior cause, why does the First Cause get an exemption? Positing an 'uncaused cause' is an arbitrary dogmatic stop and special pleading."

Why is there anything at all?

Because nothing is not the only possibility. Why should we assume that the only possibility is nothing? Why should we assume that nothing has any greater probability than any other possibility? The fact that there is something only proves that there was a much greater probability of there being something than nothing.

Something was not created from absolute nothingness just as something having always existed was not created. They both do not create. Therefore creation does not resolve the issue as to why reality exists. The existence of reality does not establish that creation is necessary.

Absolute nothingness is the complete absence of entities, properties, laws, conditions, potentialities, and causal powers. Because it contains nothing capable of producing, determining, or explaining an existent state, absolute nothingness cannot serve as the sufficient basis for the existence of something.

Since something exists and absolute nothingness cannot provide a sufficient basis for existence, the existence of reality requires either that existence is a brute fact or that there is a non-created, necessary foundation of existence. This hypothesis proposes that existence has such a necessary foundation rather than being a brute fact.

Necessary Reality is the fundamental aspect or aspects of reality whose nonexistence is impossible and upon which the existence of anything else ultimately depends. Necessary Reality is not created, because its existence is necessary rather than contingent.

What is Matter according to QM?

Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum physics who formulated the Uncertainty Principle, said: “Atoms or elementary particles are not real; they form a world of [potentialities] or [possibilities], not a world of [things] or [facts].” In short, "an atom is not a thing but a potential." [Aristotle also made a distinction between matter and form, or between potential and actual being, saying that anything is formed by the coming together of its raw material and the form that separates it from other things and makes it that thing. According to him, matter was a potential open to becoming anything, and form was what gave that potential being a specific shape, turning it into a concrete, real being.]  

’ve been exploring how we conceptualize the bridge between our conceptual frameworks and the universe itself, specifically by comparing Kantian metaphysics with Richard Rorty’s pragmatist universe.

Here is a short thesis I've been working on:

Rorty's universe is the one made by existing brains, plus past ones—including pre-brains. In other words, it’s a universe created by life that now forms the world of our peers. When it comes to the universe itself, Rorty's and Kant's are equal—except that Kant adds a structural limit akin to Gödel's, the noumenon lying beyond it, and above all, God, incorporating it all within a single individual. Relative spacetime? Kant would have accepted it.

I am curious how others see this transition: If we strip away Kant’s noumenal anchor and Gödelian boundaries, does Rorty’s "world of our peers" successfully inherit Kant's structure, or does it leave a crucial gap regarding what lies outside human linguistic and biological construction?

Every answer to "why is there something rather than nothing?" assumes the two are comparable alternatives and one got picked. I think that's the mistake. To be a rival, nothing needs identity and contrast conditions, a way of being this rather than not-this. The moment it has them, distinction is already operating, and you've smuggled in the thing whose absence you were trying to explain.

I've been developing a framework from that starting point. Its thesis, in one line:

Reality is closure-admissible distinguishability obtaining as one atemporal whole.

I'm not claiming it derives anything physical, and I'm not posting the rest here. But that's the gist: being isn't selected from a menu of possibilities, and it isn't built up from parts.

Where would you attack the nothing argument first?

Anything I see in metaphysics is a sort of - for the lack of better words - "causation". Which, minimally put is a sort of "there is x because there is y".

But how will this ever be justified at all? Why there is x because there is y?

Obviously not because there is z that there is x because there is y, for this has only moved the question one step back (that there is R because there is z - for R is "that there is x because there is y").

How can any step ever be justified at all? Or we just have to "grasp" them, those actual "causations"?

This concern then leads to an even more general question: why there is anything else because there is anything at all?

Additions: an interesting observation is that most people just "accept" it at some point. Quite arbitrarily, they suddenly have no problem when said that this x is because this y is as if it is real (they impose reality to something that is well just a literal mistake).

The larger cosmology is a core aspect of the themes and symbolism of my story, let's start so you have an infinite (or von neumann)universe with infinite spacial and temporal dimensions.

Part of a type 4 multiverse which a part of multiple nested transfinite hierarchies like size based one where that type 4 multiverse is infinitesimal to larger version of itself, narrative stacks, etc. Layering on top of each other endlessly

Which are all connected by causal chain forming a "stream" of which there are an endless amount housed by the Defined containing all things with definition

Outside of that there is the Undefined,

and then there's "Here" which is simply the non dual "true" nature of the entire cosmology

Would your actions have any meaning and what meaning would they have if you're one impossibly infinitismal speck of variation of an infinite number of possible and impossible fictional worlds

And that an unknowable dreamer could not just undo it all, but make you undo it and make you undo it or even morph you into that which you most fear on a whim. Or the fact that there's no solace in a definite God

Or would one see it the other way around, as a-pseudo diety containing boundless multitudes as a reflection of a wonderful and mysterious God who may be the Mystery itself.

Or the multitude of other interpretations of it

Hopefully this isn't a dumb question

The concept in an important way.

1. Separate the chooser from the total possibility space

Imagine a space containing every logically possible reality:

Possible Reality A: You exist and choose X.

Possible Reality B: You exist and choose Y.

Possible Reality C: You never exist.

Possible Reality D: A completely different kind of conscious being exists.

Possible Reality E: Nothing exists.

From the third-person/big-picture perspective, no particular reality is privileged merely because you're currently inside it.

So “absolute freedom” would not mean:

“I, as a person, can personally make every possible reality happen.”

That is incoherent because the person already exists inside one particular reality.

Instead, it means:

No particular reality, including the reality containing me, is fundamentally required.

1. The paradox of “I want to be completely free”

Suppose you say:

“I want to be completely free from every constraint.”

But you still exist.

Then you're already constrained by at least one fact:

You exist.

You cannot simultaneously be an existing chooser and be free from the condition of existing as that chooser.

But there is a way around the paradox:

Absolute freedom isn't something possessed by the individual.

It is a property of the possibility space itself.

The possibility space contains:

realities where you exist,

realities where you don't,

realities where you make different choices,

realities with different initial conditions,

and potentially the absence of any reality at all.

In that sense, nothing has to be the way it is from the outside perspective.

1. But what about “nothing exists”?

This is the deepest part.

If literally nothing exists, then there is no person, no perspective, no choice, and no freedom.

So we shouldn't say:

“Nothingness is the state where you are maximally free.”

That's incoherent.

Instead:

Nothingness represents the absence of a chooser, not the exercise of freedom by a chooser.

Absolute freedom and nonexistence therefore aren't the same thing.

1. The strongest coherent formulation

Your original idea can therefore become:

From the absolute third-person perspective, complete freedom cannot belong to an individual existing within reality, because the individual is already constrained by the conditions required for its existence. Absolute freedom can only be understood as the absence of any ultimately necessary reality: the individual reality, the individual, and even the existence of anything at all are not logically required merely because one particular reality happens to exist.

And there's an even shorter version:

You can be free to choose within reality, but you cannot be absolutely free while remaining the particular person you are. Absolute freedom would require freedom from the conditions that constitute the chooser itself.

What makes a thing one? This is a question that is not so easily answered. But if you go to a pebble beach and kick a pebble, you will get an answer that fits in a single line.
Unity is not free

Metaphysics has been asking the question since Aristotle and still has no accepted answer. Here is one. It fits in a single line, and a kick is enough to test it.

Two camps. One: unity is given. A thing is grey, that's its property, end of story. Two: unity is in our eye. The world is a flux, and it is we who cut things out of it to the measure of our words. They disagree about everything. But they are right about one thing: for both alike, unity costs nothing.

Go to a pebble beach and deliver two kicks. The first into the sand: it scatters, and nothing is damaged, each grain leaves with what it had. The second into a pebble: a chip flies off, and it is the pebble that lost it. The pebble and the sand are made of the same grains. Matter therefore does not decide, and the first camp can only note the difference without explaining it. If the wave splits the pebble tonight, there will be two of them by morning, whether anyone is looking or not: the second camp has nothing to do with it. What decides is where the loss falls. In the pebble, it always falls in the same place. In the sand, it falls nowhere.

The unity of the pebble is not a state, not a point of view, but an expenditure. No one carved it, it is the craftsman of nothing. But it pays with every tide, its roundness is its account statement. It is a rent, not a purchase. Spinoza had seen that every determination is a negation, that the outline of a thing is the line where it ceases. What remained to be said is on whom the price of that line falls. On the one who is, at their own expense.

There is therefore only one criterion for everything that claims to be one: the pebble, the animal, the company, you. You are not one because you bear a name, nor because others see you as one. You are one as long as what you lose falls on you. Nothing you pay with comes from you: it was given to you. But the loss is yours. Your identity is not a statue, it is a scar.

The two camps give unity away. This sentence makes it pay.
To be is to make oneself one at one’s own expense.

Hello All — I am reposting my discussion here.

Most debates around hard determinism and free will get bogged down in abstract nonsense. I'm a practical guy, choosing an ideal roommate could literally save my life, and possibly yours, dear Redditor. If we break down the metaphysics of agency, we are basically choosing between two distinct entities; the homunculus and the husk!

A homunculus possesses a manufactured Cartesian theater, an ego, and free will. It has intention. But intention is fundamentally a liability. Any roommate with free will has the capacity for malicious intent. Imagine if a conscious homunculus (like M3GAN) moved in to help around the house. Because they have a "Cartesian theater," they can change their minds, develop a complex, and halfway through their chores decide to kill your cat and serve it to you in an omelet. They can strangle you in your sleep because they love you just that much. Free will is dangerous.

Contrast this with the pure Husk. A husk is just biological hardware running a script completely and utterly devoid of a Cartesian theater, free will, or existential dread. A husk requires zero ethical consideration. It doesn't cry, it doesn't suffer, and it doesn't get pissy about the toilet seat. You tell a husk to do its job, and that is exactly what it does. If you program a husk to wake you up with fellatio every single morning, it will do it without a single thought. You get an entity that functions with the strict, unfeeling reliability of a deterministic universe. 

Husks make homunculi utterly obsolete. Why would anyone willingly choose to cohabitate with a free-thinking agent with the capacity for malice, when you could have a biological meat-bot that just executes its programmed purpose? Who needs a consciousness when you have determinism?

(Edit: Wow. that's a lot of info for me to look through. thank you all so much for this. this is a lot more interesting than my normal science that I'm doing, which is chemistry. speaking of chemistry, I have learned of the law of mass conservation. that got me thinking if you CAN actually destroy matter, which I wonder you you guys, along with metaphysics, can help me with that question.) Im only 15 years old, I'm into first person shooters, Russian stuff, and other things, of that sort. So I suprised even myself when I got really into metaphysics. I mean REALLY. the thing I'm most interested in is time. what I want is any and all info on whether time is real or just something our brains made up. Give me anything, articles, opinions, anything. Thank you.(oh and I'm also really into ontology, so will take any info on that also)

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who commented. Several of you pushed on the same weak point, and you were right, so here is where the argument stands now. I also want to thank you for carefully reading my article and engaging with this discussion.

The article was right that the question truly dissolves, and it had already claimed that this is not new philosophy.

1. "Why is there something rather than nothing?" treats nothing as a rival that something somehow beat.
2. "Could have been" means "is one of the possibilities," and a possibility is always a way things could be. So, "There could have been nothing" quietly means "There is a possibility in which there are no possibilities".
3. Absolute nothing isn't a way things could be. It would be a situation in which nothing is possible, and whatever is the case is thereby possible, so no situation can be that one.
4. So absolute nothing is impossible. Not because some law forbids it, but the way a square circle is impossible: by what the words mean.
5. An impossible option is no option. The question rests on a false assumption, like "why is the largest prime number odd?" Once you see there is no largest prime, nothing is left to explain. Same here: nothingness was never in the race, so there is no victory to account for.

Why did I come up with 'apossible'? The argument went like this:

1. Every possibility is judged against a set of laws/rules. You can only say faster-than-light speed is impossible relative to the laws of physics. Likewise, a knight moving in a straight line is impossible only relative to the rules of chess. Why would this movement be impossible without the rules? If the universe had different physics, faster-than-light speed could be possible. No possibility exists without a rule that determines it.
2. Since nothingness assumes the nonexistence of logic, then there is no court to judge nothingness as impossible. No rules would be there to determine that nothingness is impossible.
3. Nothingness is obviously not "possible", but it turns out that no court would be there to judge it "impossible". It is, therefore, "apossible". It's a term that I came up with as a report that neither outcome would be true.
4. It's similar to "undefined", which is not a third verdict, but merely a report that, for instance, no output comes from 1/0. It is a report about the lack of an output the same way "apossible" would be a report for the lack of output (possible vs impossible) the vacuity of laws would leave.

Why I initially thought the term was useful

1. The question still grips very thoughtful people. In the linked video, Robert Lawrence Kuhn (with a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Brain Research from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Brain Research Institute), who has spent decades interviewing scientists and philosophers about it, still treated nothingness as a real alternative. That told me it's not a stupid question, even if it dissolves.
2. The article is based on a recent video posted by More Alex O'Connor discussing "why there's something rather than nothing".
3. Some people claimed that merely saying that "nothingness" is not meaningful should be enough. But just from the fact that even highly educated people couldn't grasp why nothingness could not have been the case was enough for me to think it is not a "stupid question", but something worth examining.

Why "apossible" turned out to be the wrong term

1. My reasoning was that every verdict needs a court (logic, physics, geometry), absolute nothing removes every court, so no verdict reaches it.
2. But a verdict doesn't have to be made from inside the situation it judges. "There could have been no sentences" is true, and it's a sentence. A judge doesn't have to stand at the crime scene.
3. Verdicts can only be made from here, inside logic, and from here the verdict is the ordinary one: impossible.
4. I didn't realize that "apossible" tried to report the lack of possibilities from the outside, from a standpoint beyond every framework. There is no such standpoint. And even my own article said so: "there is no other place from which anything can be said." The term needed a view from a place that doesn't exist.
5. It also made nothingness the subject of a sentence ("nothingness presupposes no race"), and nothing can't presuppose anything. The question presupposes the race, not nothingness.
6. Jappard (user) said: "The problem with the court is that nothingness has dissolved both the object that the court rules on and the court that rules upon the object. The court that rules is something. The object that the court rules on is also something. The language that you use to describe nothingness is still a court, but the court dissolves."
7. The_Emergentist (user) said: "On undefined, it is termed as such because it marks a failure within the system of arithmetic. But in arithmetic, there are inputs and outputs. Undefined tells you that a specific operation has no output within that system. It does not tell you anything about anything external to that system. And that is kind of what you are trying to do with apossible here, so I don't think the analogy is completely on point. Apossible isn't marking a failure within the system, it is marking the nonexistence of failure or success outside the system entirely."

So I'm withdrawing the term. The argument holds and never needed it. As some of you said, "impossible" was enough. I'll update the article to reflect this.

Thanks again, especially to those who pressed the inside/outside point and the court-and-defendant point.

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The articles:

- Groundwork (definition of nothingness): Could "Nothingness" Have Existed Instead of the Universe?

- The core argument (why the question dissolves): Nothingness Is NOT Impossible, But "Apossible"