Argue with THIS if you can.

[variant]

Even nothing is something

Before any of you tell me that this is a contradiction, recall the number 0, 0 is the absence of value, yet it is there.

0 is an abstract representation of a lack of something, it isn't "nothing". "0 apples", is not a quantity of apples in your shopping basket, it is a quality of your shopping baskets possible yet unfulfilled ability to hold apples.

"Nothing" in the absolute does not exist, or it exists only as a concept of the lack of something (the lack of something not being something in and of itself).

 

[ArchaicTruth]

0 is an abstract representation of a lack of something, it isn't "nothing". "0 apples", is not a quantity of apples in your shopping basket, it is a quality of your shopping baskets possible yet unfulfilled ability to hold apples.

"Nothing" in the absolute does not exist, or it exists only as a concept of the lack of something (the lack of something not being something in and of itself).

absolute "Nothing" is also an abstract concept, we name it because we know it is there, and so therefore "exists"

 

[JGL53]

(my last comment regarding this dead horse):

Tillich was a highly intelligent and quite well educated "liberal" thinker. I can see how his "theological" writings would seem to be confusing, disingenuous, and/or nonsensical to both fundamentalist monotheists and fundamentalist atheists.

I think that may have been his tactic - if you can't persuade others with reason then just baffle them with..... well, you know the rest.

 

[DeathMagus]

absolute "Nothing" is also an abstract concept, we name it because we know it is there, and so therefore "exists"

Not quite. As a programmer I can tell you that the differences between "0" and "null" are rather important. One is a value of no size. The other is a representation of non-existence. Null does not actually "exist."

 

[DailyBlessings]

(my last comment regarding this dead horse):

Tillich was a highly intelligent and quite well educated "liberal" thinker. I can see how his "theological" writings would seem to be confusing, disingenuous, and/or nonsensical to both fundamentalist monotheists and fundamentalist atheists.

I think that may have been his tactic - if you can't persuade others with reason then just baffle them with..... well, you know the rest.

Honestly, I think Tillich was a better thinker and speaker than he was a writer. It's a bit like reading Julian of Norwich or al-Ghazzali- Tillich frequently starts halfway through his thought process rather than at the beginning, thus utterly confusing beginners with very different intellectual starting points.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Not quite. As a programmer I can tell you that the differences between "0" and "null" are rather important. One is a value of no size. The other is a representation of non-existence. Null does not actually "exist."

Good point, I'll keep that in mind since I'm in intro to computer programming right now XD

However, my point remains unthwarted, "null" represents the absence of anything, but this "nothingness" is still "there"

This reminds of of the imaginary number i, fun stuff

 

[variant]

absolute "Nothing" is also an abstract concept, we name it because we know it is there, and so therefore "exists"

Concepts are separate in their necessary existence from what they attempt to define or describe.

For example God proper doesn’t exist because we have a concept of God. We are free to have a concept without an object to link it to, and it is free to be an entirely meaningless and distorted view of things.

Simply put not everything we name exists outside our conception because our conceptions are free to be entirely wrong.

The concept of "absolute nothing" is free to not point to any particular reality or existent entity beyond the concept itself.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Perhaps I am misconstruing or remaking the definition of "existing", but we understand where I'm coming from yes?

 

[quatona]

There´s hardly any doubt that god (actually billions of gods) exist in the way concepts exist.

 

[DeathMagus]

To put it back in parallel in programming - you can define all the variables you like, but if you don't define them with values, their "existence" is of no significance.

 

[Im_A]

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich

here's something i'd like to add from Tillich.

"Since God is the ground of being, he is the ground of the structure of being. He is not subject to this structure; the structure is grounded in him. He is this structure;and it is impossible to speak about him except in terms of the structure. God must be approached cognitively through the structural elements of being-itself. These elements make him a living God, a God who can be man's concrete concern. They enable us to use symbols which we are certain point to the ground of reality." P. 238

at this moment i can't remember where the quote came from. i copy and pasted it from another discussion i'm in about Tillich because he's one of my favorite philosophers/theologians. when i find out what book it is, i'll make sure i come back and let you know. i can't find my current copy of "Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich and wanted to be sure if the poster that posted the quote in the other discussion was quoting it from that book before i state what book it came from Paul Tillich. here's the link:
http://foru.ms/t6476771-god-does-not-exist-the-atheism-of-paul-tillich.html&page=2

maybe that will help you with that quote you quoted in the OP.

here's another explanation of that:

This Tillich quotation summarizes his conception of God. He does not think of God as a being which exists in time and space, because that constrains God, and makes God finite. But all beings are finite, and if God is the Creator of all beings, God cannot logically be finite since a finite being cannot be the sustainer of an infinite variety of finite things. Thus God is considered beyond being, above finitude and limitation, the power or essence of being itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich

which to me makes a lot of sense. to say God exists is giving the same restrictions as to say you and i exist and logically if that being that we call "God" is infinite, that being cannot be understood in the sense of existing or not existing because anything existing or not existing get limited to time and space and mortality.

 

[variant]

Perhaps I am misconstruing or remaking the definition of "existing", but we understand where I'm coming from yes?

I think we have a shared definition of "existing", it’s where you’re applying the definition that I'm having trouble with. The problem is that you are equivocating the concept of something with the something itself when calling nothing a thing.

It's confusion with the language since "nothing" the idea is different than nothing the person "no one" place "no-where" or thing "nothing". Only one of them exists, the idea, and that is because ideas are free to be entirely imaginary.

What is commonly meant when someone says that X doesn’t exist is that it doesn’t exist outside our imagination.

Like this statement:

Dragons do not exist.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Yes, I see where we were at an impasse, I'll just patch up my definition of existing (if only I had a word for what I was talking about earlier D: ).... Though it has hit me just now as a very interesting fact that humanity cannot even observe absolute nothing (which includes absence of space) because we cannot exist in it and it cannot exist within something, else it would be something and not nothing anymore.

This is turning out to be a very fruitful conversation, this is a very interesting line of thought I have not quite embarked on yet...

 

[quatona]

In which "discovering absolute Nothing" (in whatever degree of capitalization) is a completely nonsensical term, so I won´t hold my breath.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Just for the record, in case you are possibly confused quatona, I edited my post several times before your post was shown.

 

[quatona]

Just for the record, in case you are possibly confused quatona, I edited my post several times before your post was shown.

Ok, thanks for notifying me. I hadn´t noticed.
It does not really make much of a difference though, AT.
My criticism is that you are confusing objects, concepts and terms.
Been there, done that exhaustively. It gives you a nice kick, it´s fascinating, it opens a whole universe of paradoxa, and if you don´t watch out you´ll eventually lose it completely.

 

[variant]

Yes, I see where we were at an impasse, I'll just patch up my definition of existing (if only I had a word for what I was talking about earlier D: ).... Though it has hit me just now as a very interesting fact that humanity cannot even observe absolute nothing (which includes absence of space) because we cannot exist in it and it cannot exist within something, else it would be something and not nothing anymore.

This is turning out to be a very fruitful conversation, this is a very interesting line of thought I have not quite embarked on yet...

Well I have gone down this road before, arguing for months with someone via email who was completely convinced of the necessity of nothings existence.

I however am convinced that many words in the language we use are logical leaps.

We have the idea of "thing" or stuff with qualities, and we have the idea of opposite, lack or null, and we mesh the two together to have a "non-thing". The concept doesn’t make any sense if we can only interact with "things", so logically we can not experience nothingness. The problem is that our minds can accommodate the concept because they can accommodate the problematic logic and overlook it. You can also use the word as a different term for lack like the phrase "I have nothing to do", which means you are idle, or lack a purpose.

Lack is a useful concept that has to do with probability and understanding what things could happen. The two concepts get interchanged pretty easily because we don't think in terms of absolutes very much to think of a concept like absolute nothingness.

This language issue showed me the difference between an abstract thought and the object type reality that we exist in. The thoughts are completely free to contradict themselves because they are representational A=B, synapses or writing or words can stand in for something else, where contradictions don't seem to exist in objective reality where A=A.

As to the OP argument it is made up of the same kind of nonsense language, if God doesn’t exist because he’s just too darned freaking awesome to merely exist then talking about it is essentially worthless. It doesn’t mean anything to mesh the concepts of transcendence and existence together since it cripples our ability to think about it.

What is the use of a description if it makes what is described less comprehensive? I call it talking in riddles FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE of being misunderstood and therefore thought deep.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Aye, I've had plenty of people tell me to stop discussing such antics, but it's not something I seem to be willing to drop.

 

[quatona]

Good points, variant.
Another problem is the desire to transcend concepts that derive their meaning and usefulness from the context and the frame of reference into something "absolute".

 

[quatona]

Aye, I've had plenty of people tell me to stop discussing such antics, but it's not something I seem to be willing to drop.

It´s not like I´m telling you to stop it, AT. It would be a pointless appeal, anyways:
If that´s the sort of stuff your thoughts are occupied with, you can´t stop thinking about it, anyways.
And, as I´ve said before, it can be a lot of fun as long as it lasts. It also reminds me a little of those questions Buddhist teachers give their students for contemplation.