Semantically maybe. But ontologically no. You are in the prison of semantics, the moment of uttering nothingness would be something.
If nothingness truly “were” such, it could neither exist, nor precede, nor establish anything. As soon as you attribute a role to it, it is no longer nothing. I mean, if you say “nothingness is X,” you are making an attribution to it and therefore acknowledging its minimal being. This is not, for me, a semantic problem; it is a logical-ontological problem.
I was only describing in words just to tell what it is about, and how it is, because it is the only method we can communicate.
Ontologically speaking, I would have just pointed to the empty space, and waved my hand.
Space exists as immaterial object, or subsists. Otherwise nothing can exist. Space is the evidence that immaterial objects exist.
‘Nothing’ can’t even be meant, so I usually put it in single quotes.
The extended material is forced by default, since there isn’t anything (‘Nothing’) to prevent it; thus, there is no alternative to it, for it has no opposite, showing that it being there is not metaphysical. It is permanent, and spouts the temporaries such as the elementary ‘particles’ by rearrangements of itself, such as quantum fields forming quanta. Its unstopableness forces it to ever continue its doing.
It is continuous and has no parts that would be more fundamental than it, showing that it has an ultimate lightness of being which is perhaps the Planck size.
‘Stillness’, a cousin of ‘Nothing’, is impossible, too, making it to fluctuate, for it cannot get to a ‘Nothing’ state. Its randomness is necessity because no design could be put to the eternal permanent in the first place that never was. The uncertainty principle probably covers this.
There is no ‘frozen’ block universe because there can be no infinite precision.
Puoi formalizzare questo argomento passo per passo? Ti leggo con piacere.
My preferred style of philosophy is short and quick fragmented discussions and thoughts on the point.
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I agree with your idea of time. It is exactly what I have been claiming in few other threads relating to time. However, I am not sure on your idea of consciousness.
Consciousness itself might not be an entity, but it definitely exists. If not, no one would be conscious.
There is no separate “who” that experiences, but “I” experience my own mental events. “I” have my own memories, intuitions, imaginations and thoughts.
“I” cannot exist outside of my own consciousness. Consciousness is the boundary of “I” and the world. Without it, the boundary disappears into total oblivion and no idea of “I”.
Just like space, non physical entity exists. We just cannot see them, because our vision is limited to certain wave length of physical objects. It doesn’t prove consciousness doesn’t exist. Therefore space exists, and consciousness too.
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There is existence.
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The base existent has no opposite and no alternative, for ‘Nothing’ cannot be.
Done.
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I’m replying now, I’ve been busy at home between yesterday and today. @PoeticUniverse I agree. And if it seems banal, it’s because it is. Banality’s refusal to acknowledge what is opens the door to vast scenarios. When I asked @Corvus to explain the steps, I did so precisely to understand if there was a logical step that justified the conclusion, because fragmentary intuitions, undoubtedly suggestive, must hold up. The moment we make an attribution to “nothing,” it is no longer “nothing” and we are operating within the existential paradigm. So either, as @Corvus said, it’s a semantic problem and therefore we are using a word improperly, or we are introducing an immaterial entity.
Corvus, I believe that when faced with consciousness, with subjective experience, with that immediate instant in which we and only we perceive and feel, questions arise about where the “who” who feels pain resides, who perceives a scent, a color, and how to reconcile the sectoral functioning of the brain with the perceptual uniqueness of consciousness In neuroscience, these kinds of questions are commonly labeled as “hard problems,” meaning the difficulty of explaining how, from distributed neural processes, subjective phenomenal experience arises. I, too, believe it’s useful to carefully consider why the “problem” appears to us as such. Let’s consider, as a brief phenomenological example, the perception of a color, and let’s say it’s the color red. We therefore have a sequence of things that happen, and which can be physically explained, for us to see red. When light reflected from a “red” object reaches the retina, the receptors transform the different wavelengths into electrical signals; these signals are processed by specific neural networks (the perception of red activates areas of the occipital lobe, other regions determine depth, movement, contrast, and so on). The light, however, is not “red”, the object is not “red”: nevertheless, what we subjectively experience is not a sequence of impulses of brain activity: we see red, that is, we live an immediate and irreducible experience. Similarly, when perceiving a complex object like an orange (let’s suppose we look at it while holding it in our hand), information about its shape, texture, weight, spatial position, and other data, such as its scent, are processed in different areas of the brain. Surprisingly, our experience isn’t fragmented, since we perceive the fruit in its entirety, as a coherent and integrated set of properties interpreted as a single perceptual event. So, who gathers this multifaceted information, detected by different brain regions, to whom are they submitted, and who then interprets it as a unified whole? If it’s not identifiable in the physics of the brain, then who is it? Where, precisely, does it reside? These straightforward examples clearly illustrate the nature of the hard problem: how does a network of separate physical processes generate a unified, qualitatively defined, and subjective experience? Phenomenal consciousness seems to “be there” in a way that the purely material-sequential explanation struggles to make intuitively evident.
From my point of view, the enigma arises from a conceptual error, which is that of treating consciousness as an autonomous entity separate from matter, as if there existed a distinct “I” that observes and feels. This is a metaphysical projection, a remnant of dualism, a clinging to the Platonic oyster that tends to persist even in the most rigorous materialist paradigms.
Essentially, the real problem is the metaphysical matrix of the “problem of consciousness,” not consciousness itself. The error lies in its conceptualization, that is, in thinking that there must be a separate subject that receives stimuli and “feels” experiences. This way of thinking automatically introduces transcendent elements that make consciousness a mystery, if its delineation actually seems to lack an extra-material explanation. But if we also observe the question of consciousness in the light of radical materialist realism, what seems like a mystery dissolves. Consciousness is not an entity separate from matter; it is another aspect of the same organization. Pain, color, the unified experience of fruit, the “I” are not “things” separate from matter, but are phenomenal modalities of highly organized material processes. Perceptual integration, subjective experience, the immediate sensation of “seeing” and “feeling” emerge from the coordinated interaction of neurons, synapses, and distributed networks. There is no “place” of consciousness; there is no “hidden subject” hosted within matter. What we call consciousness is the result of material structures that organize and integrate information; friction arises only by persisting in the idea of a separate metaphysical self. Matter, organization, dynamics, integration: consciousness is one aspect of these manifestations, that is, a natural, emergent, and, inevitably, material ph
- Creator / chooses / spiritual / subjective / opinion
- Creation / chosen / material / objective / fact
The category 1 is just subjective, so you can reduce the scheme to:
- randomness / material / objective / fact
And then refrain from making any subjective statements. Which delivers the most pure materialist view of reality.
Good reply. 
Will get back to you in due course, meanwhile …
Hi mate - thanks for the OP and site.
I’ve had, admittedly, a “Deep scan” through - I am not seeing anything which could coherently get us to consciousness. Could you point me to it?
Nagel is starting to look like an old codger. Still love him though. One of my favourite current American philosophers overall.
For transparency, I never use a like as a reply, but I use it in two ways: as a way to share the content of the comment and, sometimes, as a way to express appreciation for those who read me and took the time to reply. I haven’t seen the video yet, which I can’t do now. As soon as I do, I’ll figure out how to fit it into your reply. See you later.
@Syamasu, @Poetic Universe @AmadeusD, as with the video I still have to watch, your comments deserve careful reading for a coherent reply. I have more time to read in the evenings; during the day, I try to read as best I can during my work breaks, but I can’t seem to find the attention/comprehension to read and develop a reply. See you later.
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No problems. Thank you for your clarification.
Like space is the precondition of all existence, and exists in immaterial form, consciousness is the precondition for all perception and mental events and operation, which exists in one’s own mind in strictly subjective form.
In order to argue for a coherent materialist view of reality, and claim what exists and what don’t, you need to define what existence and the term “exist” mean.
There are no physical entities corresponding to space and time; they are bookkeeping methods as convenient labels. The extended material can serve as space, but it is not inside ‘space’. The fundamental equations of physics don’t require time.
I believe that the contents of consciousness simply cannot be eliminated, either epistemologically or ontologically. When we see a tree, we do not simply see a tree; we perceive it through a categorical intuition that allows us to understand that a tree is a general concept applicable to different instances; we perceive something distinct from neural processes. The materialist will have to say that the tree we see consists of neural processes resulting from the real tree we perceive. But where does the belief that we see a real tree come from? From experience. In other words, the materialist will also have to say that the real tree consists of neural processes. And are neural processes real? We return to the same question. In other words, experience takes precedence over any account of the world.
Let us consider the concepts of physics. These concepts are presented to consciousness as concepts endowed with a degree of generality. An extreme materialist will have to say that these concepts, insofar as they are concepts, are also neural processes. And what happens then? We fall into cerebralism: all knowledge of physics must be understood as neural processes. A materialist who reduces experience to neural processes has no choice but to reduce the world as well to neural processes. Our realism regarding things other than ourselves has no neural counterpart; it is something that presents itself to experience (in experience, we see ourselves as individuals distinct from our environment. But something like that is not seen in the brain!!!
If you ask an extreme materialist to demonstrate that something exists beyond the brain, he cannot do so.
Viva Frege.
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I can see space everywhere I go. Space is not physical entity, but it exists. Space is a unique entity on its own. It is definitely immaterial entity.
Space is the precondition for all physical entities and movements. Without space there would be no physical matter, and no motion.
Time has nothing to do with space. Time is psychological posit of measured intervals on the changes of events, motions and actions.
There are quantum fields everywhere.