'Nothing' and 'nothingness' refer to different things: the former is shorthand for 'no thing', and the latter refers to the absence of any thing.
actually, the latter is the state of 'no-thing'.
Agreed, but that is a paradox: we only have a state of nothingness (which is what I assume you mean by 'nothing') when there is an absence of any thing, so 'it' cannot be some thing, because that violates its definition.
exactly. . . . and i assumed you meant "nothingness" as well when you said "nothing lacks all restrictions".
that's basically all i was trying to do, show how the statement "nothing lacks all restrictions" is wrong. it's your statement, and isn't that your premise?
Oh, I understand it, I just don't see where you're going with it. I fully agree that, if nothingness cannot not be any thing, then it must be some thing, but no one here is claiming that.
didn't you claim that nothing lacks all restrictions? if you agree with me on my definitions, then your premise is essentially "nothing is something".
Your logic is flawed, as we keep trying to show you.
really? i don't remember any of that?
first, my logic is flawed because i'm actually using logic.
second, my logic is flawed because you say so without any reason...
i'll tell you what. out of the five different arguments i've given against this, pick one and list it out in order from premise to conclusion and tell me where it's wrong. i've done this for you twice before.
Well, obviously nothingness is restricted by the laws of logic (of which the law of identity is the one you're citing).
alright.
I didn't think that needed stating.
well, i did since you said that "nothing lacks all restrictions"
But the point is that nothingness is not restricted by anything else because, by definition (and thus beyond mere tautologies), there cannot be anything else.
so nothing doesn't lack all restrictions?
well, that's one step up from where we were.
For nothingness to be restricted by more than the laws of logic, some thing must exist. But, by definition, this is false. Therefore, no thing exists.
and how exactly is that "state" supposed to produce something if nothing is nothing?
in other words, how is the state of lacking all things supposed to produce "something"?
nothing as itself is enough to prevent something... where would "something" come from inclusive to "the state of the lack of all things".
your revised premise is that "nothingness lacks all restrictions except the restriction of identity"
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what you're failing to realize here is that when you say "nothing lacks all restrictions except identity" is that a restriction is an
absence.
for instance:
when i say "a rock is restricted from becoming a butterfly". i'm telling you something that the rock cannot do because of what the rock "is not".
the rock "does not" have the capacity to become a butterfly.
the rock is restricted to having the capacity to become a butterfly.
john can not continue running because he hits a wall.
john is restricted from continuing to run because he hits a wall.
so, saying that nothing lacks restrictions is essentially saying that nothing lacks absence.
however, nothing is absence, so nothing cannot lack absence.
labeled out for you:
2 points to understand before the argument:
i. nothingness is a negative term, meaning it's defined by what it isn't. nothingness is the absence of everything.
ii. restriction is also a negative term of sorts, meaning it defines what the object in question can
not do, or be.
argument:
1. nothingness is the state of absence
2. restrictions are explanations of absences towards the object in question.
3. therefore, since nothingness is the state of absence, nothing has all restrictions.
i'm about to go into more detail with 3, but first do you understand that? let me know if you need me to go over anything.
a restriction is firstly an explanation, and since it's an explanation:
3. nothingness doesn't have restrictions in the sense that there is no one their to label them. (this lies on the word "explanation".)
3. nothingness does have restrictions in the sense that there actually are defined restrictions whether we know about them or not, based on the law of identity.
conclusion:
since nothingness is the state of the absence of everything, and since nothingness is nothingness, nothingness has all absences. Because nothingness has all absences, nothingness has all restrictions based on the identity principle of nothingness.