Why is there something rather than nothing?

[Terrapin Station]

Is it possible that we just don’t recognize that a lack of things can cause things?

After all, a lack of gasoline can cause a car to stall. A lack of food can cause starvation. A lack of experience can cause mistakes.

There have to be things in those cases for prior states to cause subsequent states. If there are no existents, there isn't any prior state to cause a subsequent state.

But you haven't explained or defined what are 'existents'? In logic, the supposition then, would not be sound. Don't mean to call you out on that on TS, but you've committed a typical Ad Hoc Fallacy. A common mistake for some philosopher's.

Any thing, of any sort, that obtains, occurs, etc. Anything of any sort that there is. So if there are laws, they exist in some sense.

[3017Metaphysician]

Is it possible that we just don’t recognize that a lack of things can cause things?

After all, a lack of gasoline can cause a car to stall. A lack of food can cause starvation. A lack of experience can cause mistakes.

There have to be things in those cases for prior states to cause subsequent states. If there are no existents, there isn't any prior state to cause a subsequent state.

But you haven't explained or defined what are 'existents'? In logic, the supposition then, would not be sound. Don't mean to call you out on that on TS, but you've committed a typical Ad Hoc Fallacy. A common mistake for some philosopher's.

Any thing, of any sort, that obtains, occurs, etc. Anything of any sort that there is. So if there are laws, they exist in some sense.

That would be a contradiction though TS. Because physicalism could not provide logical justification for its existence, could it?

[Terrapin Station]

That would be a contradiction though TS. Because physicalism could not provide logical justification for its existence, could it?

First off, these three sentences:

"Any thing, of any sort, that obtains, occurs, etc. Anything of any sort that there is. So if there are laws, they exist in some sense. "

Have nothing whatsoever to do with physicalism. They're a general ontological comment that applies whether one is a physicalist or not.

[PoeticUniverse]

Unless nothing counts as something…

I guess you mean 'Nothing', the quotes indicating that 'it' cannot be meant or referred to being, without any properties.

Suppose that something can arise without an antecedent, form 'Nothing'… No, wait, for this property or capability is indeed something and so then the so called 'Nothing' wasn't really a 'Nothing' to begin with.

A near 'Nothing' with capability still seems to play some kind of a role, though, for there appears be a near-zero sum balance of opposites in the universe. There are no definites in the quantum realm such as zero. Does something have to become when zero even tries to be?

So, you could be onto something.

[Consul]

The concept of nothingness as the absence of existence results from an erroneous ontological reification of logical negation. There are no negative entities. The world doesn't contain absences or lacks in addition to positive entities. The absence or lack of a world is not a possible world, and the absence or lack of reality is not a possible reality.

[Pattern-chaser]

The concept of nothingness as the absence of existence results from an erroneous ontological reification of logical negation. There are no negative entities. The world doesn't contain absences or lacks in addition to positive entities. The absence or lack of a world is not a possible world, and the absence or lack of reality is not a possible reality.

In electronics, we consider current to be a flow of electrons, or of holes, interchangeably (to suit our convenience). A hole is a place where an electron could be, but is not; it's the lack of an electron. This is just a way of looking at things, it has no authority, but it illustrates that the lack of things is a useful concept in some circumstances.

[Terrapin Station]

A great philosophical book (specifically in ontology) with some relevance:

Holes and Other Superficialities by Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi

https://www.amazon.com/Holes-Other-Supe ... 026253133X

[Consul]

In electronics, we consider current to be a flow of electrons, or of holes, interchangeably (to suit our convenience). A hole is a place where an electron could be, but is not; it's the lack of an electron. This is just a way of looking at things, it has no authority, but it illustrates that the lack of things is a useful concept in some circumstances.

"Holes are an interesting case study for ontologists and epistemologists": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/holes/

We talk about holes as if they were entities, e.g. "There is a hole in the wall"; but our ordinary hole talk doesn't entail any serious ontological commitment to holes as entia negativa. If holes are empty, unoccupied places or regions of space, and space is a substance, then holes are entia positiva, since regions of substantial space are something rather than nothing. And talk about holes in material objects can be replaced with talk about holey objects or objects with hole-surrounds.

QUOTE>
"The issue, then, is: 'Are there holes, do they exist?' David and Stephanie Lewis point out that we certainly say things which suggest that there are – for example, 'There are many holes in that piece of cheese.' Can we either avoid this apparent ontic commitment or render it palatable? For surely, as it stands, to say that there are holes, empty spaces etc., is to take paradigm examples of nothings and make them into somethings.

One way of trying to avoid the apparent ontic commitment is to reconstrue 'There are holes in A' as 'A is perforated', but, as the Lewises observe, this kind of manoeuvre cannot handle statements like 'There are the same number of holes in A as in B' and 'The number of people in this room is the same as the number of holes in that piece of cheese.'

One way of trying to render this apparent ontic commitment palatable is to identify holes with hole-surrounds or hole-linings, that is, with the bit of matter around the hole, and so make holes non-controversial, material somethings. But the Lewises give good reasons against this that I will not repeat here.

There is, fortunately, a third response available (not discussed by the Lewises). Holes are not hole-surrounds, for they are nothing at all; nor can statements 'about' holes in things be translated in terms of unstructured one-place predicates like 'is perforated' or 'has four holes'; but what can be done is to translate statements putatively about holes in terms of statements about hole-surrounds. 'There are many holes in that piece of cheese' just says that it contains many hole-surrounds; 'There are the same number of holes in A as in B' just says that A and B have the same number of hole-surrounds; and so forth. To offer these translations is not to identify holes and hole-surrounds anymore than to translate statements about the average family in the usual way is to identify the average family with the families that there are.

It is, therefore, mistaken to hold that size, duration, and shape are properties of holes, empty spaces, vacuums, and so forth, because nothing can be a property of nothing."

(Jackson, Frank. Perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. pp. 131-2)
<QUOTE

[Pattern-chaser]

A great philosophical book (specifically in ontology) with some relevance:

Holes and Other Superficialities by Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi

https://www.amazon.com/Holes-Other-Supe ... 026253133X

Interesting; thanks. I put it on my A****n wishlist...

[Consul]

We talk about holes as if they were entities, e.g. "There is a hole in the wall"; but our ordinary hole talk doesn't entail any serious ontological commitment to holes as entia negativa. If holes are empty, unoccupied places or regions of space, and space is a substance, then holes are entia positiva, since regions of substantial space are something rather than nothing.

For example, "There are four holes in this piece of cheese" can be ontologically interpreted as "This piece of cheese encloses four cheese-free regions of space".

[3017Metaphysician]

That would be a contradiction though TS. Because physicalism could not provide logical justification for its existence, could it?

First off, these three sentences:

"Any thing, of any sort, that obtains, occurs, etc. Anything of any sort that there is. So if there are laws, they exist in some sense. "

Have nothing whatsoever to do with physicalism. They're a general ontological comment that applies whether one is a physicalist or not.

Nope. That's a comment made out of logical necessity, not an ontological comment of Being. Once again, you have a contradiction. That's because 'becoming' requires time for its existence, logical necessity does not. Logically necessary truth's are timeless and eternal. Kind of like the transcendent laws of the universe.

Accordingly, the laws themselves are metaphysical; not physical. Yet they are only apperceived ontologically.

Who taught you logic anyway

[Pattern-chaser]

In electronics, we consider current to be a flow of electrons, or of holes, interchangeably (to suit our convenience). A hole is a place where an electron could be, but is not; it's the lack of an electron. This is just a way of looking at things, it has no authority, but it illustrates that the lack of things is a useful concept in some circumstances.

We talk about holes as if they were entities, e.g. "There is a hole in the wall"; but our ordinary hole talk doesn't entail any serious ontological commitment to holes as entia negativa. If holes are empty, unoccupied places or regions of space, and space is a substance, then holes are entia positiva, since regions of substantial space are something rather than nothing. And talk about holes in material objects can be replaced with talk about holey objects or objects with hole-surrounds.

Yes, OK, but is The Truth really so important? Especially if we bear in mind that we don't really know what The Truth is, although we like to think we do. We actually have close-to-zero knowledge of what actually is, so if holes prove to be a useful way of looking at some things, some times, isn't that sufficient justification for using this perspective (and others like it)? I think perhaps it is.

[Consul]

Yes, OK, but is The Truth really so important? Especially if we bear in mind that we don't really know what The Truth is, although we like to think we do. We actually have close-to-zero knowledge of what actually is, so if holes prove to be a useful way of looking at some things, some times, isn't that sufficient justification for using this perspective (and others like it)? I think perhaps it is.

We don't have to change our ordinary reifying hole talk, but ontologists don't have to regard holes as negative entities that are part of the furniture of the world.

[Consul]

We don't have to change our ordinary reifying hole talk, but ontologists don't have to regard holes as negative entities that are part of the furniture of the world.

Whether negative entities exist is a matter of ontological fact.

[Consul]

Whether negative entities exist is a matter of ontological fact.

My answer is no.
For example, it has been argued that negative truths require negative facts or states of affairs as truthmakers; but a negative truth such as "Mick Jagger isn't the lead singer of the Beatles" isn't true by virtue of the existence of the negative state of affairs of Mick Jagger not being the lead singer of the Beatles, but by virtue of the nonexistence of the positive state of affairs of Mick Jagger being the lead singer of the Beatles. That is, the statement "Mick Jagger isn't the lead singer of the Beatles" isn't true by virtue of the presence of a negative truthmaker, but by virtue of the absence of a positive falsemaker. There is nothing (positive) which makes the statement "Mick Jagger is the lead singer of the Beatles" true, so it is false; and therefore "Mick Jagger isn't the lead singer of the Beatles" is true—given the logical law of excluded middle.