Nothingness, God, and the Empty Set | Poal: Say what you want.

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The axioms of set theory imply a primitive ontology in which existence is predicated on containing other things or being oneself contained. Moreover, such a description is exhaustive: when describing anything as a set, we have a complete ontology for the thing.

Second, the basic relation of all things in reality is according to their membership, to this or that set. This implies that there is nothing which exists that is not either a set or an element within a set, or both.

There is exactly one set with no members, called the empty set or ∅.

∅ ⊂ A for every A (including ∅) but it is not true that ∅ ∈ A for every A.

In English, the empty set (having zero elements) is a subset of all sets, but it isn't true that ∅ is an element of all sets. We'll see why below.

So, if we take A = {1, 2, 3} and we begin to remove elements, we can show that ∅ is a subset of A. (Sn are subsets of A).

Sx ⊆ A = {1, 2, 3}

Sy ⊂ A = {1, 2} (one element removed)

Sz ⊂ A = {1} (two elements removed)

∅ ⊂ A = {...} (all elements removed)

Note, that this does NOT mean A = {∅}. ∅ is not an element of A, but since ∅ has no elements, it is thought to 'participate' as a subset of all sets. We might say that the membership of ∅ (that is, no members) is implied by all sets. All sets are collections whose cardinality could be be zero, therefore ∅ is a subset of all of them. ___

But what is nothing? The empty set is the one having no elements. How does this relate to the number 0? Zero is not nothing. Zero denotes cardinality. Zero would be the cardinality of the empty set, as in the number of elements it has. The empty set has some correspondence to zero in Boolean logic for computer science, but I'm not terribly interested to get into a discussion about zero: just let it rest that mathematically, zero is not nothing.

What I'm interested in is the metaphysics implied by the empty set. Most mathematicians probably have the equivalent to the empty set of reasons for finding this discussion useful (dork joke).

Someone could say that the entire inquiry is trivial: Nothing can be said about nothing. It's tautological. To speak with regard to it is just to say something, akin to {...}. By denoting the empty set this way, haven't I already missed my target? I've said something about that which has no somethings.

This is what I find metaphysically interesting (of course, I'm making all kinds of assumptions as to the limits of human reasoning and intellect). To anyone besides a metaphysician, any further discussion beyond our ability to represent the situation symbolically will seem childish.

___

It seems that there is no proper way to speak of nothing simpliciter.

In fact, whatever thought is, seems to preclude us from access to nothing by its very existence. Basic intentionality (with its aboutness) necessarily creates information, and nothingness cannot communicate information.

What ∅ signifies to me is that in probing what nothing is, the mind can only go so far as a state of affairs in which there is nothing. When we say there is nothing in the fridge, the logical extension in the statement at least picks out the refrigerator having the state of affairs in which there is no food item inside - here, even 'nothing' has an extension: food. You could say that 'nothing in the fridge' is describing the empty food set. So we don't truly mean nothing...instead we mean 0 in the presence of something: the place of food. If the fridge were a set of all its elements, F, the situation of 'nothing in the fridge' is F = {...}. This is NOT nothing.

A great deal of metaphysical debate concerning the origin of the universe involves reference to nothing, as in the possibility of the nothingness that preceded the existence of the universe. But what is it that we refer to when we speak about this possibility?

Such statements always strike me as describing any primordial pre-existence as ∅. We think of nothing and cannot do so without the brackets {...}, as in, there at least existed the state of affairs in which something could exist. We imagine vast blackness, and still, it is necessarily a thing which could contain elements. So questions about origins of the universe pivot on whether you think true nothingness is a coherent term.

If nothing* is possible, then a posteriori we find ourselves in a current state of reality which must have experienced creatio ex nihilo. If there was truly nothing, this change is describable as at least the change from no state of affairs to a state of affairs, ∅, where the possibility for the inclusion of elements existed. We think creatio ex nihilo is logically impossible, so this is ruled out. If there is something today, there was never nothing.
If nothing* is not possible, and something has always existed, then we must still explain ∅ according to what we know about contingent existence. To do this we'll return below to the idea of looking at sequential subsets.

Contingent existence is that which does not contain its own reason for existing, that is, it must be explained according to causes from without. An apple is contingent. You are contingent.

If the universe, U, is the finite set {1, 2, 3.....n}, it is possible by principles of causation to scientifically reduce the universe by sequential subsets as we did above, where the first subset has (n-1) elements of U. For the sake of example:

U = {f(E)1.....f(E)n} | f(E)i = { x ∈ E: u({x}) --> u({y}) for all y ∈ E }

So, the universe consists of elements which are functional states where any state can be explained by some basic function, u, which transforms some subset x to y. Granted, that's rough. But physics is pursuing an elegant theory of everything which by way of a finite set of equations hopes to do exactly this for every element of the universe - one theory which could causally reduce all of the information about the entire state of the universe.

Still, the initial state of the universe had no physical elements, and so without x and y, we're left with:

Scientific pre-universe: U = {∅, f(E)}, implying that we must at least consider the empty set an event space.

Can the universe be logically reduced to the empty set, i.e. to a state of affairs where the potential to exist is all that exists? Again this depends upon the true possibility of nothing. If nothingness could never have been the case (which we think it cannot because creatio ex nihilo is ruled out), then the reduction to the empty set is only possible where some agent brought about the first elements in the empty set.

Instead of this, particle physics might have you thinking that reality is an infinite regress of subsets of primitive particles. Others would like to appeal to the emergence of matter from natural laws, but since the LAWS of nature themselves are not actually elements, but are relations among elements, the only possible appeal would be to existence as a collection of something.

Put another way, the laws of nature could not exist prior to the set of elements whose members can relate. The universe could not have come to exist by the actions of laws relating the behaviors of matter.

Effectively, scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n). If the universe is a set of states, we can reduce these states to previous states, so on and so forth. We find, however, this always arrives at some subset which can neither be reduced or explained. Yet, whatever these least reducible things might be, they are contingent by definition.

According to physics, their explanation must be in laws of nature. By this mistake, the only analytical a posteriori necessity for the origin of this universe was the set { ∅, f(E) }, where we have the state of affairs for things to potentially exist, and the lawful relations which would govern events if there were any elements to be relating. But herein lies the contradiction. No relation is an element of a set, nor can a relation exist in ∅.

To get around this, physics requires an appeal to a different sort of infinite regress of elements: the Multiverse (MV).

MV = {Ux, {Uy, Uz.... ∞}}

...which says that our universe, Ux, is one element of a multiverse of infinite elements. This is how the regress to the untenable situation of U = ∅ is avoided, by introducing not an infinite regress of actual universes in causal succession, but a plenum of weighted probabilities, something more like:

MV = {P(Ux), {P(Uy), P(Uz).... ∞}}.

We just happen to find ourselves in the convenient scenario where the probability of our universe existing with just the necessary relations was = 1. Lucky us. Apparently, such an appeal to the infinitude of existence (as many possible universes), we escape both creatio ex nihilo and also the primordial state of the universe being simply ∅.

To this we ask: isn't it logically possible that the probabilities for all universes in MV are 0? Of course not, there is always a necessary element or we'd arrive at ∅. So ∅ remains a possibility for MU, contra there being a necessary universe in MV. If there is a NECESSARY universe in MV, then we have arrived at another problem, which has to do with defining the term necessary.

Someone could say, "Sure, maybe there is a necessary universe in MV and so all but (∞ - 1) universes is contingent."

Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements.

What is necessary must exist separately from MV, i.e. the necessary being cannot be an element within MV. This precludes the objection where someone simply redefines what a universe is: "If there is a necessary being that exists, then MV would just come to include that thing." But if inclusion in MV means being a universal set which is itself exhausted by membership of only finite and contingent elements, nothing necessary can be included in the set MV.

As a solution to these problems, I ask: what is not an element in ANY set, but is NECESSARILY a subset proper of EVERY set?

It is ∅.

It is just the state of affairs in which the potential to exist is. One cannot avoid the intuition that the same equivalence of the foundation of the universe, ∅, has parallels with the human mind.

After all, the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing. ∅ is the most primitive concept we can form. This would make sense if ∅ underlies a universe which is fundamentally self-simulating. Indeed, if we take mental causation seriously, then we must face the fact that we arrive at a problem similar to the Cosmological Problem itself when we consider some thoughts. Therefore, the causal explanation for certain thoughts might be thought to refer back to an analogous form of necessary being, namely ∅, or a basic plenum of creative potential, combined with the event of actualization granting Form.

We might very well think that mind cannot be explained exhaustively by the brain (though its mental powers can be locally explained, i.e. if my brain dies, my mind appears to cease to exist). But if instead we think that brains are not producing, but rather accessing the ∅, then we have a concept that looks a great deal like the Logos, an active principle which produces order from chaos.

___

The axioms of set theory imply a primitive ontology in which existence is predicated on containing other things or being oneself contained. Moreover, such a *description is exhaustive*: when describing anything as a set, we have a complete ontology for the thing. Second, the basic *relation* of all things in reality is according to their membership, to this or that set. This implies that there is nothing which exists that is not either a set or an element within a set, or both. There is exactly one set with no members, called the **empty set** or ∅. >∅ ⊂ A for every A (including ∅) but it is not true that ∅ ∈ A for every A. In English, the empty set (having zero elements) is a subset of *all* sets, but it isn't true that ∅ is an *element* of all sets. We'll see why below. So, if we take A = {1, 2, 3} and we begin to remove elements, we can show that ∅ is a subset of A. (Sn are subsets of A). >Sx ⊆ A = {1, 2, 3} >Sy ⊂ A = {1, 2} (one element removed) >Sz ⊂ A = {1} (two elements removed) >∅ ⊂ A = {...} (all elements removed) Note, that this does NOT mean A = {∅}. ∅ is not an element of A, but since ∅ has no elements, it is thought to 'participate' as a subset of all sets. We might say that the membership of ∅ (that is, no members) is *implied* by all sets. All sets are collections whose cardinality *could be* be zero, therefore ∅ is a subset of all of them. ___ But what is nothing? The empty set is the one having no elements. How does this relate to the number 0? Zero is not nothing. Zero denotes *cardinality*. Zero would be the cardinality of the empty set, as in the number of elements it has. The empty set has some correspondence to zero in Boolean logic for computer science, but I'm not terribly interested to get into a discussion about zero: just let it rest that mathematically, zero is not nothing. What I'm interested in is the metaphysics implied by the empty set. Most mathematicians probably have the equivalent to the empty set of reasons for finding this discussion useful (dork joke). Someone could say that the entire inquiry is trivial: Nothing can be said about nothing. It's tautological. To speak with regard to it is just to say *something*, akin to {...}. By denoting the empty set this way, haven't I already missed my target? I've said something about that which has no somethings. This is what I find metaphysically interesting (of course, I'm making all kinds of assumptions as to the limits of human reasoning and intellect). To anyone besides a metaphysician, any further discussion beyond our ability to represent the situation symbolically will seem childish. ___ It seems that there is no proper way to speak of nothing simpliciter. In fact, *whatever thought is*, seems to preclude us from access to nothing by its very existence. Basic intentionality (with its *aboutness*) necessarily creates information, and nothingness cannot communicate information. What ∅ signifies to me is that in probing what nothing is, the mind can only go so far as a **state of affairs** in which there is nothing. When we say there is nothing in the fridge, the logical extension in the statement at least picks out the refrigerator having the state of affairs in which there is no food item inside - here, even 'nothing' has an extension: food. You could say that 'nothing in the fridge' is describing the empty food set. So we don't truly mean *nothing*...instead we mean 0 in the *presence* of something: *the place of food*. If the fridge were a set of all its elements, F, the situation of 'nothing in the fridge' is F = {...}. This is NOT nothing. A great deal of metaphysical debate concerning the origin of the universe involves reference to nothing, as in the possibility of the nothingness that preceded the existence of the universe. But what is it that we refer to when we speak about this possibility? Such statements always strike me as describing any primordial pre-existence as ∅. We think of nothing and cannot do so without the brackets {...}, as in, there at least existed the *state of affairs* in which something could exist. We imagine vast blackness, and still, it is necessarily a thing which *could contain* elements. So questions about origins of the universe pivot on whether you think true nothingness is a coherent term. 1. If nothing* is possible, then *a posteriori* we find ourselves in a current state of reality which must have experienced creatio ex nihilo. If there was truly nothing, this change is describable as at least the change from no state of affairs *to* a *state of affairs*, ∅, where the possibility for the inclusion of elements existed. We think *creatio ex nihilo* is logically impossible, so this is ruled out. If there is something today, there was *never* nothing. 2. If nothing* is not possible, and something has always existed, then we must still explain ∅ according to what we know about *contingent existence*. To do this we'll return below to the idea of looking at sequential subsets. >Contingent existence is that which does not contain its own reason for existing, that is, it must be explained according to causes from without. An apple is contingent. You are contingent. If the universe, U, is the *finite* set {1, 2, 3.....n}, it is possible by principles of causation to scientifically reduce the universe by sequential subsets as we did above, where the first subset has (n-1) elements of U. For the sake of example: > U = {f(E)1.....f(E)n} | f(E)i = { x ∈ E: u({x}) --> u({y}) for all y ∈ E } So, the universe consists of elements which are functional states where any state can be explained by some basic function, u, which transforms some subset x to y. Granted, that's rough. But physics is pursuing an elegant theory of everything which by way of a finite set of equations hopes to do exactly this for every element of the universe - one theory which could causally reduce all of the information about the entire state of the universe. Still, the initial state of the universe had no physical elements, and so without x and y, we're left with: > Scientific pre-universe: U = {∅, f(E)}, implying that we must at least consider the empty set an event space. Can the universe be logically reduced to the empty set, i.e. to a state of affairs where the potential to exist is all that exists? Again this depends upon the true possibility of nothing. If *nothingness could never have been the case* (which we think it cannot because creatio ex nihilo is ruled out), then the reduction to the empty set is **only possible where some agent brought about the first elements in the empty set**. Instead of this, particle physics might have you thinking that reality is an infinite regress of subsets of primitive particles. Others would like to appeal to the emergence of matter from natural laws, but since the *LAWS of nature* themselves are not actually elements, but are *relations* among elements, the only possible appeal would be to existence as a *collection* of something. Put another way, the laws of nature could not exist prior to the set of elements whose members can relate. The universe could not have come to exist by the actions of laws relating the behaviors of matter. Effectively, scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n). If the universe is a set of states, we can reduce these states to previous states, so on and so forth. We find, however, this always arrives at some subset which can neither be reduced or explained. Yet, whatever these least reducible things might be, they are contingent by definition. According to physics, their explanation *must* be in laws of nature. By this mistake, the only analytical *a posteriori* necessity for the origin of this universe was the set { ∅, f(E) }, where we have the state of affairs for things to potentially exist, and the lawful relations which would govern events *if there were any elements to be relating*. But herein lies the contradiction. No relation is an element of a set, nor can a relation exist in ∅. To get around this, physics requires an appeal to a different sort of infinite regress of elements: the **Multiverse** (MV). > MV = {Ux, {Uy, Uz.... ∞}} ...which says that our universe, Ux, is one element of a *multiverse* of infinite elements. This is how the regress to the untenable situation of U = ∅ is avoided, by introducing not an infinite regress of *actual* universes in causal succession, but a plenum of weighted probabilities, something more like: > MV = {P(Ux), {P(Uy), P(Uz).... ∞}}. We just happen to find ourselves in the convenient scenario where the probability of our universe existing with just the necessary relations was = 1. Lucky us. Apparently, such an appeal to the infinitude of existence (as many possible universes), we escape both *creatio ex nihilo* and also the primordial state of the universe being simply ∅. To this we ask: isn't it logically possible that the probabilities for all universes in MV are 0? Of course not, there is always a necessary element or we'd arrive at ∅. So ∅ remains a possibility for MU, contra there being a necessary universe in MV. *If there is a NECESSARY universe* in MV, then we have arrived at another problem, which has to do with defining the term necessary. Someone could say, "Sure, maybe there is a necessary universe in MV and so all but (∞ - 1) universes is contingent." Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements. What is necessary must exist separately from MV, i.e. the necessary being cannot be an element within MV. This precludes the objection where someone simply redefines what a universe is: "If there is a necessary being that exists, then MV would just come to include that thing." But if inclusion in MV means being a universal set which is itself exhausted by membership of only finite and contingent elements, nothing necessary can be included in the set MV. As a solution to these problems, I ask: **what is not an element in ANY set, but is NECESSARILY a *subset* proper of EVERY set?** It is **∅**. It is just the state of affairs in which the potential to exist *is*. One cannot avoid the intuition that the same equivalence of the foundation of the universe, ∅, has parallels with the human mind. After all, the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing. ∅ is the most primitive concept we can form. This would make sense if ∅ underlies a universe which is fundamentally self-simulating. Indeed, if we take mental causation seriously, then we must face the fact that we arrive at a problem similar to the Cosmological Problem itself when we consider *some* thoughts. Therefore, the causal explanation for certain thoughts might be thought to refer back to an analogous form of necessary being, namely ∅, or a basic plenum of creative potential, combined with the event of actualization granting Form. We might very well think that mind cannot be explained exhaustively by the brain (though its mental powers can be *locally* explained, i.e. if my brain dies, my mind appears to cease to exist). But if instead we think that brains are not producing, but rather *accessing* the ∅, then we have a concept that looks a great deal like the Logos, an active principle which produces order from chaos. ___

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One time I took a purely phenomenological approach, such that, instead of Set Theory, it was like Event Theory, and instead of things being elements of sets, it was basically about events happening, and what I arrived at was this realization that directing attention, ie noticing an event, is the primary, most fundamental “unit” of this “event-space”.

Jews hate when we notice, so I know I’m on the right track.

I realized fairly quickly I’d arrived at the basic metaphysics of narrative. It’s like a whole separate parallel reality. Good times.

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I think set theory can be useful, and on some level it is metaphysically intuitive. To axiomatize mathematics is a powerful claim, and there is a great deal of usefulness in the way set theory lets you build structures.

That said, I think you are absolutely right; it does remove the intension/subjectivity from view.

It's very interesting that you took a phenomenological approach to metaphysics, because that is something I've also been working on for quite a while, although I have not been framing my 'atoms' in terms of events, but of encounters. It's really an issue of whether we want to deal with reality by stressing intension or extension. Both are useful; uniting them is a different ball game.

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Both are useful; uniting them is a different ball game.

Yes but that ball game would likely change the game, wouldn't it?

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Yes, it just might. I think you'd be talking about unifying a duality that has been recognized by mankind for a long time, which is the gap existing between the observer and the observed, subjectivity and objectivity, private versus public. It's possible, as @PS has pointed out in his comments about gnosis, such a unification may be precisely what we think of as God mind [insert whatever term preferentially gets you to the transcendent]. On the religious view of Christianity, the intellect has no innate access to this, but must be directly graced with its revelation.

Importantly, I use revelation in a strict sense here and not the one where such access is gained through a booming voice or a burning bush, but in a truly intellective revelation in which enter the mind the kinds of realizations we'd normally consider to be transcendent in nature. In the realm of paranormal psychology, I'd be interested to see how such a unification of objectivity and subjectivity might describe phenomena like telepathy, but I'm getting out on the fringe at this point.

I'll leave on this: the apparently irreducible separation between the public and the private is probably such that reality as we know it can exist. Violations are probably local in nature only. The tension between the objective view (characterized by science and mathematics) and the subjective view (phenomenology, intension in speech, theories of meaning) are kind of a natural antagonism that inspires reality. The evolution of mankind toward hyperrationality and scientism highlights so much of the focus of existentialist philosophy of the 20th century. We're even at a point at which we believe ourselves capable of reducing our own 'view from nowhere' (within the privilege of individual mind) to pure physics.

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Nothing as necessary per set theory. Interesting, but nothing is not being, and so it can not be called necessary being, which is God. So this "necessity" within every set cannot be associated with God, or mind, or potential, or anything. In fact, I put "necessity" in quotes because, by virtue of nothing possessing not even being, necessity cannot be prescribed to it. Necessity and contingency apply only to being.

And creatio ex nihilo, the dogma, of course is true, but it does not assert that there was ever only nothing - as much is logically impossible, given that there exists something. But just as any and all sets have nothing as a subset, so too was God able to bring all that is into being, not from Himself, but from nothing. This is true and necessary exiterically, lest we come to believe any created is divine by virtue of being constituted solely of divine substance. Because God is Absolute Being, and omnipotent, His very will to create, His very love, simultaneously brings into being and sustains what He creates. As you say, the mind cannot comprehend nothing, but it can be related to nothing. So as light is related to a displacing of darkness, being is related to a displacement of nothing. But the light, the being, is also inseparable from its relation to what caused it and sustains it. If God ceased loving a thing, ceased willing it, then nothing would replace that creature. The creature us related inextricably both to God and to the nothing it would be without God. By this relation we can understand what is meant by creatio ex nihilo.

Of course esoterically one could refer to a non-dualism, an emanationism, where creation has no meaning, where all things with being just are God, but in a way that is not monistic either, but non-dual.

But this kind of thinking is only coherent from God's perspective. It is not truly meaningful to us. The difference between true Gnosis and the Gnostic heresy, the knowledge that "puffeth up" according to St. Paul, is simply the knower. Gnostic heretics seek to know the world as God knows it, by their own power, but this is impossible. True Gnostics, on the other hand, allow God to know for them. A divine knowing, then, that transcends human power. But thus is all faith is. The Meister, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross - these people did not know God esoterically by reason or syllogism; they experienced Him by faith, seeing Him "with the eye of God", at least as far as God willed for them to see.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica

Nothing as necessary per set theory. Interesting, but nothing *is not being*, and so it can not be called *necessary being*, which is God. So this "necessity" within every set cannot be associated with God, or mind, or potential, or any*thing*. In fact, I put "necessity" in quotes because, by virtue of nothing possessing not even being, necessity cannot be prescribed to it. Necessity and contingency apply only to being. And *creatio ex nihilo*, the dogma, of course *is* true, but it does not assert that there was ever *only* nothing - as much is logically impossible, given that there exists something. But just as any and all sets have nothing as a subset, so too was God able to bring all that is into being, not from Himself, but from nothing. This is true and necessary exiterically, lest we come to believe any created is divine by virtue of being constituted solely of divine substance. Because God is Absolute Being, and omnipotent, His very will to create, His very love, simultaneously *brings into being and sustains* what He creates. As you say, the mind cannot comprehend nothing, but it can be related to nothing. So as light is related to a displacing of darkness, being is related to a displacement of nothing. But the light, the being, is also *inseparable* from its relation to what caused it and sustains it. If God ceased loving a thing, ceased willing it, then nothing would replace that creature. The creature us related inextricably both to God and to the nothing it would be without God. By this relation we can understand what is meant by *creatio ex nihilo*. Of course esoterically one could refer to a non-dualism, an emanationism, where creation has no meaning, where all things with being *just are* God, but in a way that is not monistic either, but non-dual. But this kind of thinking is only coherent from God's perspective. It is not truly meaningful to us. The difference between true Gnosis and the Gnostic heresy, the knowledge that "puffeth up" according to St. Paul, is simply the knower. Gnostic heretics seek to know the world as God knows it, *by their own power*, but this is impossible. True Gnostics, on the other hand, allow God to know *for them*. A divine knowing, then, that transcends human power. But thus is all faith is. The Meister, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross - these people did not know God esoterically by reason or syllogism; they experienced Him by faith, seeing Him "with the eye of God", at least as far as God willed for them to see. @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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Nothing as necessary per set theory. Interesting, but nothing is not being, and so it can not be called necessary being, which is God. So this "necessity" within every set cannot be associated with God, or mind, or potential, or anything. In fact, I put "necessity" in quotes because, by virtue of nothing possessing not even being, necessity cannot be prescribed to it. Necessity and contingency apply only to being.

I may not have done an excellent job of getting this across, but I wanted to be very specific about the fact I don't take the empty set to be nothing.

One of the difficulties with a post like this is there's a lot of metaphysical extrapolating going on. For the mathematician, the empty set is not a problem. It's definitional. The issue is strictly philosophical.

In the simplest way of describing the phenomenon, as I see it, there is a difference between what we utter when we refer to nothingness, and what we actually mean.

For example, I can say, "I said nothing." The intension of this sentence is clear, and it rings perfectly true. If I did not speak during the time that was relevant to my statement, then I've made a true claim. But are we really referring to nothing? In terms of extension, I don't see that we are. Instead, I've referred to at least a couple of objects: myself (speaker) and the speech act. What I've actually said is that my speech act was null. Instead of truly pointing to nothingness, what I've actually done is pointed to the presence of, oh I don't know, an empty speech act. Silence in this case just is the absence of speech. I don't say, "I was silent." Instead, I say: "I said nothing."

This rings to me as being exactly like the empty set. When I say, "I said nothing", the verb 'said' appears to specify an empty speech act.

In set terms, if we call it S, it would be like S = {...}.

This is what I am trying to get at. If we think about the situation of nothingness, which the empty set might be thought to represent, I'm saying I don't truly think it does.

Instead, it always represents the underlying potential to have things inside the set. It represents symbolically (and strictly extensionally) Aristotelian potential.

I am fond of conceptualizing this where the empty set specifies just one thing: a state of affairs. Even if it has no elements in it, it isn't nothing because at the very least what it always does is specifies the state of affairs where nothing exists.

This is the limit I spoke about, which we cannot metaphysically (or in the mind) get beneath. Whenever we try to think of nothing, the best we can do is to conceptualize the state of affairs where there is nothing, which is not the same as nothing, because in the former there is at least the state of affairs.

I related this to potential because to get around the creatio ex nihilo, the empty set is precisely what does this - as potential. There was never nothing, because the state of affairs (potential) for something to exist MUST HAVE AT LEAST existed, even if there were no 'elements yet in the set'.

I don't ever expect you to read that monster post again, but if you do, I imagine it would be benefited by this clarification above! I was essentially trying to form a bridge between set theory and the classical metaphysics.

>Nothing as necessary per set theory. Interesting, but nothing is not being, and so it can not be called necessary being, which is God. So this "necessity" within every set cannot be associated with God, or mind, or potential, or anything. In fact, I put "necessity" in quotes because, by virtue of nothing possessing not even being, necessity cannot be prescribed to it. Necessity and contingency apply only to being. I may not have done an excellent job of getting this across, but I wanted to be very specific about the fact I don't take the empty set to be nothing. One of the difficulties with a post like this is there's a lot of metaphysical extrapolating going on. For the mathematician, the empty set is not a problem. It's definitional. The issue is strictly philosophical. In the simplest way of describing the phenomenon, as I see it, there is a difference between what we *utter* when we refer to nothingness, and what we actually mean. For example, I can say, "I said nothing." The intension of this sentence is clear, and it rings perfectly true. If I did not speak during the time that was relevant to my statement, then I've made a true claim. But are we really referring to *nothing*? In terms of extension, I don't see that we are. Instead, I've referred to at least a couple of objects: myself (speaker) and the speech act. What I've *actually* said is that my speech act was null. Instead of truly pointing to nothingness, what I've actually done is pointed to the presence of, oh I don't know, an empty speech act. Silence in this case just is the absence of speech. I don't say, "I was silent." Instead, I say: "I said nothing." This rings to me as being exactly like the empty set. When I say, "I said nothing", the verb 'said' appears to specify an empty speech act. In set terms, if we call it S, it would be like S = {...}. This is what I am trying to get at. If we think about the situation of nothingness, which the empty set *might be* thought to represent, I'm saying I don't truly think it does. Instead, it *always* represents the underlying potential to have things inside the set. It represents symbolically (and strictly *extensionally*) Aristotelian potential. I am fond of conceptualizing this where the empty set specifies just one thing: a state of affairs. Even if it has no elements in it, it *isn't* nothing because at the very least what it always does is specifies the *state of affairs* where nothing exists. This is the limit I spoke about, which we cannot metaphysically (or in the mind) get beneath. Whenever we try to think of nothing, the best we can do is to conceptualize the state of affairs where there is nothing, which is not the same as nothing, because in the former there is at least the state of affairs. I related this to potential because to get around the *creatio ex nihilo*, the empty set is precisely what does this - as potential. There was never nothing, because the state of affairs (potential) for something to exist MUST HAVE AT LEAST existed, even if there were no 'elements yet in the set'. I don't ever expect you to read that monster post again, but if you do, I imagine it would be benefited by this clarification above! I was essentially trying to form a bridge between set theory and the classical metaphysics.

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I do recall you differentiating between nothing and the empty set, since the empty set has at least as much being as to be able to contain other being, but it also seemed somehow you were equating them.

An empty set only has being insofar as it has the capacity to receive other being. This is indeed precisely what a type of being without any act would be like - pure potentiae, prime matter, being awaiting act.

But this is still distinct from necessary being, which is the opposite of prime matter, but rather is pure act.

I guess what disturbed me about your post was your association of the empty set with mind, and your description of Mind as the necessary being. That sounds a lot like God, but nothing could be further from God than prime matter.

Aristotle believed in the eternity both of Pure Act - the Prime Mover he called it - and of the world itself, particularly prime matter. And he probably believed it for similar reasons to those you've presented; the Prime Mover required existing material to move and give form to.

But the Church rejects the eternity of the world because it goes against the creatio ex nihilo dogma. Only God is eternal, everything else is created. But then again, we must remember that the Church exists to guide the flock, and human beings in our fallen nature are so sinful that, if the Church did not condemn the eternity of the world, people would turn to worshipping idols, thinking them "divine".

This is not to say the Church dogmatized a lie; that's impossible. Rather, the Church, in forming her doctrines, must work with the limitations of human language. The average Joe won't recognize the difference between "the world" (which has actual being, as it exists now and as we know it) being eternal, and "prime matter", pure potentiae, being eternal. If we call prime matter just that potential for God to create, the empty set itself, then perhaps we can get away with that without contradicting the Church. But I'm wary of such claims, because even that suggests God created creatures, in a way, from Himsrlf, which the Church condemns. Then again, as much must necessarily be true, at the right level of consideration.

And as Smith notes, even Genesis refers to God "moving over the waters" at the beginning. What waters? And why water? Is it because water is receptive to any form? Is this passage then referring to prime matter, to an empty set?

I always sense a danger more risky than its worth in discussing these issues.

Genesis 1:2 (biblegateway.com) - this is definitely the verse to consider with respect to your post. Second verse in the Bible. Not only does God move over the waters (before creating the oceans?), but the earth (before creating the earth?) is empty and void. Does this not describe an empty set?

@KingOfWhiteAmerica

I did recognize your reference to potential within the original post, but this word nothing was thrown around so much I feel as if that concept was being made synonymous with the empty set. I also thought you were saying zero and nothing were distinct because *zero* possessed something nothing did not, but then I thought you were saying that it is nothing, not zero, that constitutes the empty set. It may have just been hasty reading on my part; time was short last night. I do recall you differentiating between nothing and the empty set, since the empty set has at least as much being as to be able to contain other being, but it also seemed somehow you were equating them. An empty set only has being insofar as it has the capacity to receive other being. This is indeed precisely what a type of being without any act would be like - pure potentiae, prime matter, being awaiting act. But this is still distinct from necessary being, which is the opposite of prime matter, but rather is pure act. I guess what disturbed me about your post was your association of the empty set with mind, and your description of Mind as the necessary being. That sounds a lot like God, but nothing could be further from God than prime matter. Aristotle believed in the eternity both of Pure Act - the Prime Mover he called it - *and* of the world itself, particularly prime matter. And he probably believed it for similar reasons to those you've presented; the Prime Mover required existing material to move and give form to. But the Church rejects the eternity of the world because it goes against the *creatio ex nihilo* dogma. Only God is eternal, everything else is created. But then again, we must remember that the Church exists to guide the flock, and human beings in our fallen nature are so sinful that, if the Church did *not* condemn the eternity of the world, people would turn to worshipping idols, thinking them "divine". This is not to say the Church dogmatized a lie; that's impossible. Rather, the Church, in forming her doctrines, must work with the limitations of human language. The average Joe won't recognize the difference between "the world" (which has *actual* being, as it exists now and as we know it) being eternal, and "prime matter", pure potentiae, being eternal. If we call prime matter *just that potential for God to create*, the empty set itself, then perhaps we can get away with that without contradicting the Church. But I'm wary of such claims, because even that suggests God created creatures, in a way, from Himsrlf, which the Church condemns. Then again, as much must necessarily be true, at the right level of consideration. And as Smith notes, even Genesis refers to God "moving over the waters" at the beginning. What waters? And why water? Is it because water is receptive to any form? Is this passage then referring to prime matter, to an empty set? I always sense a danger more risky than its worth in discussing these issues. [Genesis 1:2](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen+1%3A2&version=DRA) - this is definitely the verse to consider with respect to your post. Second verse in the Bible. Not only does God move over the waters (before creating the oceans?), but the earth (before creating the earth?) is **empty and void**. Does this not describe an empty set? @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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But this is still distinct from necessary being, which is the opposite of prime matter, but rather is pure act.

I think you are correct to criticize me here. I made some confused statements toward the end in this regard.

I guess what disturbed me about your post was your association of the empty set with mind, and your description of Mind as the necessary being. That sounds a lot like God, but nothing could be further from God than prime matter.

Yes, exactly. I should have thought about it more before trying to connect the entire argument to mind. Instead, I'd rather say that the image of trinity is reflected in mind, and what the empty set reflects is the 'bottomness' of mind (the most naked thought we can have), which itself cannot come without at least some act - we bracket nothing {...}. To use a metaphor, the human mind is never flat-footed, it is always standing on 'tip toes', with some rudimentary tension in the muscles.

Somehow, I believe the image of God as triune is reflected in the human mind, and the empty set is just the cognitive reflection of the prime matter.

And as Smith notes, even Genesis refers to God "moving over the waters" at the beginning. What waters? And why water?

Precisely. I was inspired a while ago by this imagery. The ocean is a symbol of deep power and potential.

But the Church rejects the eternity of the world because it goes against the creatio ex nihilo dogma.

Yes, I think again we have arrived at one of these points of intersection where I'm interested in the esoteric understanding of reality, but you are careful to behave like a compass and keep me situated so as to always distinguish between these and the teachings of the Church.

If God is all, there is no logical way to get around the fact that the prime matter must be an aspect of God. I think you are clever to point out that (at least on a first analysis) we can distinguish between the prime matter and what we find in the created world. This is the mystery of the emanation, and where the Christian angelic hierarchy (or the Jewish Tree of Life) enters the picture symbolically. There is always the emphasis on making the distinction between the cruder matter of this world and the spiritual reality of more 'divine stuff'.

Genesis 1:2 - this is definitely the verse to consider with respect to your post. Second verse in the Bible. Not only does God move over the waters (before creating the oceans?), but the earth (before creating the earth?) is empty and void. Does this not describe an empty set?

YES! YES! That's it. Scripture had it. This got me super excited.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica

> But this is still distinct from necessary being, which is the opposite of prime matter, but rather is pure act. I think you are correct to criticize me here. I made some confused statements toward the end in this regard. >I guess what disturbed me about your post was your association of the empty set with mind, and your description of Mind as the necessary being. That sounds a lot like God, but nothing could be further from God than prime matter. Yes, exactly. I should have thought about it more before trying to connect the entire argument to *mind*. Instead, I'd rather say that the image of trinity is reflected in mind, and what the empty set reflects is the 'bottomness' of mind (the most naked thought we can have), which itself cannot come without *at least some act* - we bracket nothing {...}. To use a metaphor, the human mind is never flat-footed, it is always standing on 'tip toes', with some rudimentary tension in the muscles. Somehow, I believe the image of God as triune is reflected in the human mind, and the empty set is just the cognitive reflection of the prime matter. >And as Smith notes, even Genesis refers to God "moving over the waters" at the beginning. What waters? And why water? Precisely. I was inspired a while ago by this imagery. The ocean is a symbol of deep power and potential. >But the Church rejects the eternity of the world because it goes against the creatio ex nihilo dogma. Yes, I think again we have arrived at one of these points of intersection where I'm interested in the esoteric understanding of reality, but you are careful to behave like a compass and keep me situated so as to always distinguish between these and the teachings of the Church. If God is all, there is no logical way to get around the fact that the prime matter must be an aspect of God. I think you are clever to point out that (at least on a first analysis) we *can* distinguish between the prime matter and what we find in the created world. This is the mystery of the emanation, and where the Christian angelic hierarchy (or the Jewish Tree of Life) enters the picture symbolically. There is always the emphasis on making the distinction between the cruder matter of this world and the spiritual reality of more 'divine stuff'. >Genesis 1:2 - this is definitely the verse to consider with respect to your post. Second verse in the Bible. Not only does God move over the waters (before creating the oceans?), but the earth (before creating the earth?) is empty and void. Does this not describe an empty set? YES! YES! That's it. Scripture had it. This got me super excited. @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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I understood what you meant. The Empty Set is indeed a different thing from zero. As you said it has cardinality zero, but it’s not identical to zero. It’s this existing state of affairs with the potential to contain anything, up to and including everything. So it’s clearly not the same as either zero or “nothing”.

I read your other comment about encounters which is pretty neat. I’ll have to think about that a bit.

What I noticed about “Event Space” is that its “atoms” can always be reduced to “noticing an event”, with a narrative being the analogue to a set in Set Theory. Likewise, there’s an “Empty Narrative”, which is philosophically interesting as well.

So there’s events-in-themselves and there’s noticing those events which is itself a distinct sort of event, but yet one can never escape from that in order to construct a narrative about the events-in-themselves. That’s what I mean about the “atoms” of Event Space being noticing.

Whether the events in Event Space are somehow “physically” or “causally” related is irrelevant, because they are connected in a narrative that directs attention first to the one, and then the other; or to both at once, etc.

Anyhow, I have to go back in so I have to end this.

@PS @BurnInHelena

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And creatio ex nihilo, the dogma

Assuming something from nothing makes about as much sense as assuming nothing from something.

And as theres something (the universe), why not assume it always was, rather than the conclusion that has no evidence?

After all, if the universe existing is proof itself of creation from nothing, then we can equally say it is proof of creation from something. Otherwise we'd be implying that "something from nothing" is more probable than "something from something".

Maybe I missed the part where the prior 'something' itself had to be derived from something else, ad-infinitum, or else, ultimately regress to creation from nothing.

Forgive me that I don't know the latin terms here.

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The Church neither teaches of infinite regress nor or a world from pre-existing matter. But the terms are tricky because matter, as conceived by the public at the time creatio ex nihilo was formalized, did not refer to mere possibility, but some corporeal, some perceptible. And so the Church simply teaches that the world came into bring through an act of God alone, and that no corporeal, measurable, perceptible matter existed prior to this creation.

It isn't a matter of something from nothing. It is a matter of something from nothing, predicated of the Everything.

@Chiro @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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And so the Church simply teaches that the world came into bring through an act of God alon

It would indeed have to be an act of God or else the most improbable event to have ever happened.

Supposing it ever did happen.

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This issue comes down to causality and contingency. Contingency and necessity are the heart of the argument. We could try to imagine the creation of something from something that you speak of, but no matter what something we arrive at, there must ultimately be a necessary something at the beginning. For example, to arrive at the cause of our universe simply being another universe is just to push the same problem back by one step. That universe would be contingent as well (unable to explain its existence by its own reasons without appeal to another outside cause).

So, you can imagine an infinite train. At the front of even an infinite train must be an engine car. According to Aquinas this is what all men call God.

One of the things I've tried to confront in the OP is the fact that there was never nothing. Nothing is incoherent given what we do find.

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My head hurts. Did you just add more stuff to this?

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You're well and beyond me at this point, so forgive me if I'm somehow reiterating something you've already said, my question is this:

Must there be an object of thought for there to be a thought at all?

Of course thats getting into some thorny issues. For example, are all the various combinations of potential movements generated in the PMC also 'thoughts'?

Is it only a thought if we are aware of it? What about 'perceptions' which continue to operate on and color our experiences, even when we are unaware of them?

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you're well and beyond me at this point

It's beyond me as well.

Must there be an object of thought for there to be a thought at all?

Fascinating question. Honestly, I don't know that we're going to be able to get into every consideration. Of course, the question hangs on the way that we define both thought and consciousness. If consciousness is just what has thoughts, and thoughts are what your consciousness does, it seems like we'd necessarily be specifying thought as having not simply intentionality, but qualia. In other words, to pass muster a thought must achieve a supraliminal state. Immediately, having just really put one foot down on the ground, we're already catching arrows from people of a Freudian or Jungian persuasion, who'd opt to grant an active life to the activity in the unconscious, despite not being available to our direct attention.

The ontology of thought is a thorny issue. As you've also pointed out, there is also this issue of distinguishing these states of potential in the PMC (which could simultaneously incite movements, sensations and percepts) from thoughts, if it is possible to do so. So we ask: are these 'thoughts', or would we say that these mental states have the potential to generate thoughts, say, if they meet some liminal threshold? I don't ask as if to pretend I have the answer. Frankly, by 'jumping in' at this point, it so often seems to be the case that you wind up in a quagmire that ultimately suffocates the activity. To make any sense of mind, I think you must begin further upstream. (Then again, the way you have asked your question might just liberate thought from the mind entirely, making metaphysical speculation about the mind just more muck!)

There is a simple way to approach your primary question (quoted above), which is just to stipulate the definition of thought (as we have done in the first paragraph). If I define thought as what crosses the threshold of attention then, in principle, it must be possible to be aware of thoughts (even if it is possible that a thought exists in the attention for such a short duration that it practically fails to register). It follows that thought must also have an object. Thought without Form cannot be thought, because Form is precisely what confers the 'aboutness' to a thought. Someone could say: "But when I meditate the goal is to empty my mind of intentions and objects. Yet, surely I am still thinking!" I'd agree, but I'd also say that meditation specifies a goal which is fundamentally unachievable, and the gifts of meditation are not in the achievement of any state, but in the receipts that issue from your trying to reach that state (and failing).

What about 'perceptions'

Perceptions are tricky. Does something meet the level of a percept if one is not aware of them? Perhaps the better question would be: how do we know a percept exists in the mind if the individual is not aware of it? If the mind cannot make a report to us about the perception, why should we think there is one?

Let's do a thought experiment that I think will be very useful. Imagine we anesthetize a person. While they are under we hold open their eyes and pass color cards in front of them, while simultaneously testing the neurons in the visual cortex for activation. What we have found is not a perception, but a neurological response to a stimulus. That response certainly encodes information in the digital state of neuron clusters, as in frequency coding models for action potentials. But what actually exists in that neural state? This encoded information is not directly the contents of, say, a color experience.

Now suppose we hooked that same brain up to a device that could amplify and convert the digital information in the visual cortex into images on a screen. This is something well within the realm of possibility. We need to think epistemologically about the ways we know (or think we know) a perceptual content even exists in a brain/mind.

We see that there are 3 ways to know if a brain state has perceptual contents. We can:

Accept a direct report from the person who is perceiving.
Project the information encoded digitally in a brain state through a hardware interface which maps the digital information to a form which is interpretable by another piece of hardware/software combo that projects the new information according to light or sound waves (as with a computer monitor or speakers).
Make an inferential leap that activity in this brain region must contain perceptual content because destroying any of the associated structures within the circuit (from the eye to the optic nerve to the visual cortex itself) results in a loss of percept-experiences discoverable by either (1) or (2).

In (1), we assume a speech act. There is no manner of speaking which lacks any object. In (2), we still assume an object. When we map analog signals to hardware that is capable of converting them, what are we converting to? The entire method has the assumption that there is some meaningful object to be represented as either visual or audial data! In fact, it wouldn't make sense that we adopted this approach if we thought the neural firings in that brain region weren't encoding some meaningful object. In (3), we are able to make our inference because of what? Because the objects of visual perception have been eliminated from thought! That subject goes right on thinking, but not seeing.

Tentative Conclusion

Percepts appear sufficient to give contents to thoughts, and even to result in the formation of thought in some cases, but are not themselves necessary for thought. A person can have senses removed and still be thinking things. If we imagine destroying all of the regions of a subject's brain that were responsible for organizing sensory data (without killing that person), we could further show that all thoughts have an object. What we've done here is to eliminate every possibility for objectively/empirically analyzing this person's thought - instead, causing ourselves to rely on (1), or the privileged reports of the subject about their thinking (again, this would involve a speech act which necessarily has an object).

You see, there is no way to talk about thought, to study it, to even conceive of it as not possessing an object. This relates closely to the position I laid out in this post. Even when we attempt to consider nothingness, we still bracket it {...}, indicating that the most primitive object of any thought is a state of affairs, or the field of potential where things can happen.

Lastly, this cuts across the distinction we made in an earlier comment between objectivity and subjectivity. There is an objective way that any mental state could be tethered to an object. Hell, there is a way that any neurological change could be said to have an object, just given what neurons do, which is to respond to other things (other objects or other neurons). For example, we could study a primitive organism which is not thought to be conscious whatsoever, yet which has the rudiments of a nervous system and is capable of responding to its environment. Say that this organism is capable of sensing temperature change, and when it encounters intense heat or cold it moves away from the source.

Isn't it the case that any form of learning or beneficial change in the organism's behavior could be said to have an object? Even individual neural firings that properly register some physical phenomenon in the environment must have an object (in this case a cause that they register). It seems that to have an object is just to be able to register, via some mode of information, a cause! Either this, or an end. This is just what we think nervous systems do.

Another way of making this final point would be to consider the most physically reduced possible world - one with no consciousness at all. Suppose we have two objects A and B (they can be billiard balls, or whatever). A collides with B and causes a change in the behavior of B. The change in B's behavior has the outside cause of A at its root. Therefore, this behavior itself (though not qualifying as 'thought' in any common sense) is directly correlated to an object, which is to say B's behavior has an object. In one way of thinking about this, B has a liability to behave a certain way under certain conditions. One of these conditions involves powers that are exerted on it by other things. When A displays its basic powers in such and such a way toward B, B has a liability to modify its behavior. Things don't like to change - in fact, they resist it with great force. So when an object changes, this must have an object, even if what constitutes that object is the minimal liability B must suffer to change its behaviors (physics corroborates this with the Lagrangian function and minimal energy).

So, the argument I'm truly making here is not just that thought always has an object, but rather that all phenomena have an object. Everything in reality is an encounter, namely encounters between objects with certain powers and liabilities, not the least of which is their own final cause.

When we make the distinction between objects of thoughts having qualia, we aren't distinguishing between thoughts with or without objects. The issue is one of registration. If, like I have argued elsewhere, the brain is not a producer of mind but a filtration mechanism, then we can think of it as a filter for God mind, where God mind is registration of all information. To register all information precludes the local, finite narratives we take to be our lives. Instead, we are local streams of focus. We register as conscious experience only the causes in the world that are most relevant, according to your preferred theory of motivation. There appear to be underlying most theories of human motivation a metaphysical set of basic categories - these are the interest of all theories of motivation even when the theorists are not aware of them. I believe they formed a large part of early human wisdom, including the categories set out by astrology.

Put another way, you are local point of attention which filters the sum total of reality according to your end, or final cause, combined with the natural way that your environment antagonizes that end.

@PS @KingOfWhiteAmerica

>you're well and beyond me at this point It's beyond me as well. >Must there be an object of thought for there to be a thought at all? Fascinating question. Honestly, I don't know that we're going to be able to get into every consideration. Of course, the question hangs on the way that we define both thought and consciousness. If consciousness is just what has thoughts, and thoughts are what your consciousness does, it seems like we'd necessarily be specifying thought as having not simply intentionality, but *qualia*. In other words, to pass muster a thought must achieve a supraliminal state. Immediately, having just really put one foot down on the ground, we're already catching arrows from people of a Freudian or Jungian persuasion, who'd opt to grant an active life to the activity in the unconscious, despite not being available to our direct attention. The ontology of thought *is* a thorny issue. As you've also pointed out, there is also this issue of distinguishing these states of potential in the PMC (which could simultaneously incite movements, sensations and percepts) from thoughts, if it is possible to do so. So we ask: are these 'thoughts', or would we say that these mental states have the potential to *generate thoughts*, say, if they meet some liminal threshold? I don't ask as if to pretend I have the answer. Frankly, by 'jumping in' at this point, it so often seems to be the case that you wind up in a quagmire that ultimately suffocates the activity. To make any sense of mind, I think you must begin further upstream. (Then again, the way you have asked your question might just liberate thought from the mind entirely, making metaphysical speculation about the mind just more muck!) There is a simple way to approach your primary question (quoted above), which is just to stipulate the definition of thought (as we have done in the first paragraph). If I define thought as what crosses the threshold of attention then, in principle, it must be possible to be *aware* of thoughts (even if it is possible that a thought exists in the attention for such a short duration that it practically fails to register). It follows that thought must also have an object. Thought without Form cannot be thought, because Form is precisely what confers the 'aboutness' to a thought. Someone could say: "But when I meditate the goal is to empty my mind of intentions and objects. Yet, surely I am still thinking!" I'd agree, but I'd also say that meditation specifies a goal which is fundamentally unachievable, and the gifts of meditation are not in the achievement of any state, but in the receipts that issue from your trying to reach that state (and failing). >What about 'perceptions' Perceptions are tricky. Does something meet the level of a percept if one is not aware of them? Perhaps the better question would be: how do we know a percept exists in the mind if the individual is not aware of it? If the mind cannot make a report to us about the perception, why should we think there is one? Let's do a thought experiment that I think will be very useful. Imagine we anesthetize a person. While they are under we hold open their eyes and pass color cards in front of them, while simultaneously testing the neurons in the visual cortex for activation. What we have found is not a perception, but a neurological response to a stimulus. That response certainly encodes information in the digital state of neuron clusters, as in frequency coding models for action potentials. *But what actually exists in that neural state?* This encoded information is not directly the contents of, say, a color experience. Now suppose we hooked that same brain up to a device that could amplify and convert the digital information in the visual cortex into images on a screen. This is something well within the realm of possibility. We need to think epistemologically about the ways we *know* (or think we know) a perceptual content even exists in a brain/mind. We see that there are 3 ways to know if a brain state has perceptual contents. We can: 1. Accept a direct report from the person who is perceiving. 2. Project the information encoded digitally in a brain state through a hardware interface which maps the digital information to a form which is interpretable by another piece of hardware/software combo that projects the new information according to light or sound waves (as with a computer monitor or speakers). 3. Make an *inferential leap* that activity in this brain region must contain perceptual content because *destroying* any of the associated structures within the circuit (from the eye to the optic nerve to the visual cortex itself) results in a loss of percept-experiences discoverable by either (1) or (2). In (1), we assume a speech act. There is no manner of speaking which lacks any object. In (2), we still assume an object. When we map analog signals to hardware that is capable of converting them, what are we converting to? The entire method has the assumption that there is some meaningful object to be represented as either visual or audial data! In fact, it wouldn't make sense that we adopted this approach if we thought the neural firings in that brain region weren't encoding some meaningful object. In (3), we are able to make our inference because of what? Because the objects of visual perception have been eliminated from thought! That subject goes right on *thinking*, but not *seeing*. ##Tentative Conclusion Percepts appear sufficient to give *contents* to thoughts, and even to result in the formation of thought in some cases, but are not themselves necessary for thought. A person can have senses removed and still be thinking things. If we imagine destroying all of the regions of a subject's brain that were responsible for organizing sensory data (without killing that person), we could further show that all thoughts have an object. What we've done here is to eliminate every possibility for objectively/empirically analyzing this person's thought - instead, causing ourselves to rely on (1), or the privileged reports of the subject about their thinking (again, this would involve a speech act which necessarily has an object). **You see, there is no way to talk about thought, to study it, to even conceive of it as not possessing an object.** This relates closely to the position I laid out in this post. Even when we attempt to consider nothingness, we still bracket it {...}, indicating that the most primitive object of any thought is a state of affairs, or the field of potential where things can happen. Lastly, this cuts across the distinction we made in an earlier comment between objectivity and subjectivity. There is an objective way that *any* mental state could be tethered to an object. Hell, there is a way that any neurological change could be said to have an object, just given what neurons do, which is to respond to other things (other objects or other neurons). For example, we could study a primitive organism which is not thought to be conscious whatsoever, yet which has the rudiments of a nervous system and is capable of responding to its environment. Say that this organism is capable of sensing temperature change, and when it encounters intense heat or cold it moves away from the source. Isn't it the case that *any form of learning or beneficial change* in the organism's behavior could be said to have an object? Even individual neural firings that properly register some physical phenomenon in the environment must have an object (in this case a *cause* that they register). It seems that to have an object is just to be able to register, via some mode of information, a cause! Either this, or an *end*. This is just what we think nervous systems do. Another way of making this final point would be to consider the most physically reduced possible world - one with no consciousness at all. Suppose we have two objects A and B (they can be billiard balls, or whatever). A collides with B and causes a change in the behavior of B. The change in B's behavior has the outside cause of A at its root. Therefore, this behavior itself (though not qualifying as 'thought' in any common sense) is directly correlated to an object, which is to say B's behavior *has an object*. In one way of thinking about this, B has a liability to *behave a certain way under certain conditions*. One of these conditions involves powers that are exerted on it by other things. When A displays its basic powers in such and such a way toward B, B has a liability to modify its behavior. Things *don't like to change* - in fact, they resist it with great force. So when an object *changes*, this must have an object, even if what constitutes that object is the minimal liability B must suffer to change its behaviors (physics corroborates this with the Lagrangian function and minimal energy). So, the argument I'm truly making here is not just that thought always has an object, but rather that **all phenomena have an object**. Everything in reality is an **encounter**, namely encounters between objects with certain powers and liabilities, not the least of which is their own final cause. When we make the distinction between objects of thoughts having **qualia**, we aren't distinguishing between thoughts with or without objects. The issue is one of **registration**. If, like I have argued elsewhere, the brain is not a producer of mind but a *filtration* mechanism, then we can think of it as a filter for God mind, where God mind is registration of *all information*. To register all information precludes the local, finite narratives we take to be our lives. Instead, we are local streams of focus. We register as conscious experience only the causes in the world that are most relevant, according to your preferred theory of **motivation**. There appear to be underlying most theories of human motivation a metaphysical set of basic categories - these are the interest of all theories of motivation even when the theorists are not aware of them. I believe they formed a large part of early human wisdom, including the categories set out by astrology. Put another way, you are local point of attention which filters the sum total of reality according to your end, or final cause, combined with the natural way that your environment antagonizes that end. @PS @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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I'm pretty sure a big part of Sartre's phenomenology was contending with the object of thought-consciousness. But I don't remember enough of Being and Nothingness to comment thoughtfully.

Although just that title should indicate that he probably said something of value or relevance to the present discussion. Then again, he was a phenomenologist, so maybe I'm being too generous assuming he said something valuable.

Just kidding. Sort of.

@GetCynical @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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I read some Sartre one time (Nausea), and he’s a hopeless faggot. I wasn’t impressed - my use of “phenomenological” isn’t tied to Sartre’s, despite there likely being at least a little overlap in content.

It was simply to contrast with “ontological” being concerned with existence, and I wanted to focus instead on happenings as the fundamental “atoms”.

I honestly don’t know what Sartre was talking about for sure, so it might or might not be the same reason. I’m not too concerned with it though.

I came up with my phenomenology before I read St. Dionysios’s Celestial Hierarchy. I’m glad I did, because it gives me a snapshot of my pre-Christian mind. It found completion in Christ, since it was true, and all truth is God’s. So I relate to those pre-Incarnation truth-seekers who discovered the same thing I did in the Gospel.

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Just kidding. Sort of.

Haha. I tried to take a less phenomenological approach above for this very reason. Although I think that method is important, I think people are naturally skeptical of it as an approach to mind itself, just because it lends itself to it too subjectively. There's a sense that people think the 'sun can't shine on itself.'

I haven't read much primary Sartre. I've read quite a bit of secondary literature that mentions him. As it pertains to this conversation, Sartre was an opponent of Freud, and he denied Freudian ontology when it came to the unconscious. For Sartre, all mental objects were possible to attend to if one is reflective enough. It situates itself right in that Existentialist groove, right? It's the difference between truly conscious persons and ordinary objects, where one can be for-itself (as consciousness strives to do) and one can be in-itself as being just is.

It's an interesting distinction, because he says that pure being in-itself is God, which is absolute identity, or perfect identity and control over one's destiny. Sartre says that this is impossible for man, although we strive to do this constantly. Instead, consciousness is what it is, and we feel this tension always to limit consciousness into this or that role, to define our identity because we want to be God. He says the struggle is basically futile since to do so would be to have control over the being of all things, over the destiny of all being. Since this is inaccessible to man, living this way leads to living in bad faith. This is just to live inauthentically according to rules and values that are given to us from without.

So naturally, he was one of these liberationist types who I think completely misses the point. It's as if he wants to say that since once cannot be God, that one could not possibly reason about God in the world or the Logos. It actually all comes off rather satanic.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica @GetCynical

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I don't ask as if to pretend I have the answer.

Ha, something I do too often unintentionally. Begging the question is a bad habit.

I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them. First theres the studies here https://medium.com/@kennelliott/39-studies-about-human-perception-in-30-minutes-4728f9e31a73

What appears to be true at least from a cursory look, is that perception is not, ordinarily, an attentive process. We don't have to be aware of it for it to effect how we perceive objects or thoughts.

How do we know percepts exist at all? Well really, we only know through testing. I suppose in a broader sense you'd be correct to suggest nothing exists apart from its relation to something else. Temperature for example is only measurable in relation either to a thermometer or relative to other temparatures, and so on.

What we have found is not a perception, but a neurological response to a stimulus.

Yes, but it has meaning only in relation to something else. Representation carries semantic information.

So when you ask, "what actually exists in that neural state?", I would say, I don't know but its probably something along the lines of 'a neuron with a state such that its representation encodes some transmissible information."

Theres a duality here between representation and information, which I think isn't emphasized enough because we get caught up in mechanism over message. Every key is a model of the lock that it opens. And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there something, but information may be transmitted between mediums that act as representations at all.

You hit on something on interesting: "which maps the digital information to a form which is interpretable by another piece of hardware/software"

The keyword being 'interpretable'. Whats a gramophone? A transcoder. Takes information in one representation and converts it to another representation. The act of transcoding is not the act of representation itself, but rerepresentation (if thats even a word). So it would appear interpretation and transcoding is as essential to representation as the medium which holds the representation. Which is to say, a thing can never be represented except in relation to another (which you already stated), but more broadly it is the act of 'packing or 'unpacking it' in conjunction with the representation, that provides the utility of the inherent representation. Without it the representation is a blackbox, it might as well be the empty set-- which is why I wrote "encodes some transmissible information." as a prerequisite.

Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about entropy.

This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this.

> I don't ask as if to pretend I have the answer. Ha, something I do too often unintentionally. Begging the question is a bad habit. I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them. First theres the studies here https://medium.com/@kennelliott/39-studies-about-human-perception-in-30-minutes-4728f9e31a73 What appears to be true at least from a cursory look, is that perception is not, ordinarily, an attentive process. We don't have to be aware of it for it to effect how we perceive objects or thoughts. How do we know percepts exist at all? Well really, we only know through testing. I suppose in a broader sense you'd be correct to suggest nothing exists apart from its relation to something else. Temperature for example is only measurable in relation either to a thermometer or relative to other temparatures, and so on. > What we have found is not a perception, but a neurological response to a stimulus. Yes, but it has meaning only in relation to something else. Representation carries semantic information. So when you ask, "what actually exists in that neural state?", I would say, I don't know but its probably something along the lines of 'a neuron with a state such that its representation encodes some transmissible information." Theres a duality here between representation and information, which I think isn't emphasized enough because we get caught up in mechanism over message. Every key is a model of the lock that it opens. And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there *something*, but information may be transmitted *between* mediums that act as representations at all. You hit on something on interesting: "which maps the digital information to a form which is interpretable by another piece of hardware/software" The keyword being 'interpretable'. Whats a gramophone? A transcoder. Takes information in one representation and converts it to another representation. The act of transcoding is not the act of representation itself, but *rerepresentation* (if thats even a word). So it would appear interpretation and transcoding is as essential to representation as the medium which holds the representation. Which is to say, a thing can never be represented except in relation to another (which you already stated), but more broadly it is the act of 'packing or 'unpacking it' in conjunction with the representation, that provides the utility of the inherent representation. Without it the representation is a blackbox, it might as well be the empty set-- which is why I wrote "encodes some **transmissible** information." as a prerequisite. Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about *entropy*. This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this.

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I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them.

I think I may have gotten myself into a bit of trouble in my last post. I reread it at one point, and I think at points I was conflating sense data and perceptions. To be honest, I don't have the time or desire to revisit that earlier comment and possibly revise the whole thing, and that's without knowing where my failure to make the distinction actually impacts the outcome. I just want to get clear on how I view the situation, without committing to a formal philosophy of perception.

Sense data just is what it is, but must be selected and organized through the mechanisms of perception.

It might be more helpful, instead of taking sense data and perceptions as natural kinds of brain information, to view them as stages in the architecture of thought. An analogy could be useful. A house begins with a set of plans. Then you set a foundation. You begin to frame on the foundation, building up walls and levels sequentially, beginning first with the stick skeleton of the home's interior and exterior, and then refining with more and more specific functional elements (doors, windows, exterior siding, electrical).

In terms of the brain/mind, let's call the thought a finished home with a family inside. Let's also say that something is liminal if it meets the level where thought can attend to it, in principle. A thought, then, must be something on which I could potentially reflect (although being reflected upon is not necessary to being a thought), while a perception can become a thought if it is reflected upon, although most acts of perceptions qua perception are not noticed. We could imagine something perceiving the color red without having thoughts about it. So perhaps what I really mean to do is just stipulate that a thought has a semantics and it is, by definition, something which involves a kind of reflection, implied by the semantics itself.

I might even go as far as to say that thought just is formal and conceptual semantics applied as an envelope to more primitive organizations of even more primitive structures. This is how something could perceive the color red and merely behave but not think.

Returning to the house analogy, sense data might be something like the raw materials. These are already pre-cut lumber by the time they reach the brain, thanks to the upstream work of the lumber mill (our sensory neurons). Perception would be the interactions between the plans and the raw materials that begin to assemble the home's basic structure. Finally, it's the living within the home by a family that is thought.

All of those materials that went into the home could be used for a different home, that is, they have an intrinsic value. Each piece or section of the home is something representative of the final cause of any home, the way that place is to be used. The point is this is something generative, with levels of assembly, and perceptions don't have to ever reach the level of being a home - perceptions can disappear or be deconstructed. Thought can 'move in' to these structures as a kind of formal and conceptual semantics that gives them a sense. A house is not a home until it is sensed that it is.

How do we know percepts exist at all?

I think we can infer it logically. Pretend I place you in a room with a lamp. Your body and the lamp are 10 ft. apart. I ask you, "Do you see the lamp?" In effect, what it is to see the lamp is a complex process involving sense data, perception, and thought (because you've now been asked to reflect). Let's say that besides you, I've brought in some controls to test in other rooms.

I can infer the existence of sense data by placing an opaque screen between one person and their lamp. If the person cannot see the lamp, then this external wall has prevented something involved in the chain of mental representation. It doesn't seem to have prevented sensing all things, or thought itself, so it is logically preventing some primitive kind of information from obtaining. We'd call that sense data.
I can infer the existence of percepts if I obliterate someone's visual cortex. It should be possible to study whether cells in the retina and optic nerve are active in the presence of the lamp light, but if I ask this person whether they see the lamp, and they say 'No', I'd wager that something is now missing between the sense data and the thought. Such a person who cannot see is still able to understand what a lamp is, or what light is, and the basic sense of what I'm asking about a priori. They just can't see it. By analogy, the raw materials for the house are all sitting on pallets in the yard, but there are no plans to assemble them.
Here is where things get interesting. As I see it, there is no logical way to infer thought except through the direct report from the subject.

Two problems become interesting to me.

(a) Someone could say that I've made an error in (3). A machine could be subjected to each of these tests and could be made to demonstrate the same results, even down to being able to report that it is seeing. So the question as it concerns thought becomes whether it must be attended by qualia. Moreover, if reporting is the best we can do, how do we rule out that the machine is (or is not) having a conscious experience?

(b) Can thought actually be separated ontologically from sense data and percepts? I believe this one is particularly important. To see what I mean, imagine that we could grow fully functional human brains, identical in structure and all empirical signs of activity as any healthy human brain. Suppose we did this for a brain in a vat. This assumes a brain without any sensory inputs (ignore that it may be impossible to eliminate all sensory input).

Could such a brain have thoughts?

We could get into all kinds of philosophical debate about this. I've already gone on for too long, so I'd leave on this idea: that whatever human mind is, a part of its very nature cannot be separated from its embodiment in an environment. The brain itself happens inside of a body, which is in communication with itself and the environment. Brains do not just grow absent their relations to the world.

@PS is someone who could talk about this notion much more aptly than I am able. There is this notion that things which are intelligible in nature only have this property of being intelligible because they inhere as the result of a Substantial Form. This is true of the lamp, and it is why thoughts about the lamp have the character they do, which is to say why they have their logical sense and qualia. However, what is true of the lamp is also true of the human person: we inhere as the result of a Substantial Form, and this is what we refer to when we say we have a soul. The soul is the Form of the human person. Another way to think about it would be to consider it as the 'missing piece', which being absent even having our 1. sense data, 2. perceptual organization, and 3. otherwise fully functioning brain, would prevent authentic conscious thought from happening.

In the brain-in-a-vat example, we might think there exists a way to 'record' the mental activities of that brain in a way that would produce a linguistic representation if they were occurring in such a way as to have any meaning. Would we expect such a brain to have an 'inner life' where it depicted certain kinds of images and imaginary events according to categories of space, time, causality, etc? Incidentally, some people might jump to the conclusion that primitive archetypes like Jung's would still be here, but I argue that isn't the case. Implicit in Jung's theories is a Lamarckian ontology: we pass through all of the phases of our race in the womb. To grow a brain in a vat is to grow something separately from the very generative pleroma of the 'conscious field' of the mother (if you will).

There is a real sense in which we 'fall into' or 'jump into' life like we are jumping into a stream. You don't start or stop this thing. You get on the ride while it is already in motion.

The potential that exists in the human Form (soul) is actualized in a very specific way, one life begetting another within the cosmically important womb. The point here is the notion of a thinking brain which has been grown isolated from both a body and an environment is unlikely to have conscious thought. What, after all, truly makes the brain-in-a-vat with all of its wired connections to this or that readout machine altogether different from the machine we mentioned earlier?

To me, it's that we are on a stream, a flowing river, that man cannot recreate. It's been flowing. It was already flowing when we became conscious enough to realize we were being pulled along by the current. Life begets life. You don't start a new stream in the one which you are already riding: it's all one stream. Even so-called conscious machines are just going to be elaborations of man, not a new stream, but extensions of the existing one - they carry within them something derived from us, a Logos.

I'm ranting. I get like this sometimes.

And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there something, but information may be transmitted between mediums that act as representations at all.

You would have probably been very interested in a theory introduced to me by @PS called CSI (Complex Specified Information). That resulted in some really enlightening conversations, but it pertains to precisely what you are intuiting above. I completely agree with you, btw.

Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about entropy.

In one way of thinking, called Shannon-Weaver information, the information content of a string is its entropy. I do think you'd find the topic of CSI pretty engaging given your interest in this idea. Here is a paper by Dembski that explains the underlying logic.

https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/dembski-william-22the-logical-underpinnings-of-intelligent-design22.pdf

For what it's worth, I spent weeks trying to refute CSI as I debated PS on the issue. Not only was I unable to do it, I wound up becoming convinced that it's true. If I get time I can try to dig up a conversation we had at Poal back in January sometime. What became apparent to me was that information is tied to symmetry.

This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this.

Yours as well; we have our moments, don't we. We aren't as active as we were months ago, but this sort of thing is always enjoyable.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica

> I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them. I think I may have gotten myself into a bit of trouble in my last post. I reread it at one point, and I think at points I was conflating sense data and perceptions. To be honest, I don't have the time or desire to revisit that earlier comment and possibly revise the whole thing, and that's without knowing where my failure to make the distinction actually impacts the outcome. I just want to get clear on how I view the situation, without committing to a formal philosophy of perception. Sense data just is what it is, but must be selected and organized through the mechanisms of perception. It might be more helpful, instead of taking sense data and perceptions as natural kinds of brain information, to view them as stages in the architecture of thought. An analogy could be useful. A house begins with a set of plans. Then you set a foundation. You begin to frame on the foundation, building up walls and levels sequentially, beginning first with the stick skeleton of the home's interior and exterior, and then refining with more and more specific functional elements (doors, windows, exterior siding, electrical). In terms of the brain/mind, let's call the *thought* a *finished home* with a family inside. Let's also say that something is *liminal* if it meets the level where thought can attend to it, in principle. A thought, then, must be something on which I could potentially reflect (although being reflected upon is not necessary to being a thought), while a perception can become a thought if it is reflected upon, although most acts of perceptions qua perception are not noticed. We could imagine something perceiving the color red without having thoughts about it. So perhaps what I really mean to do is just stipulate that a thought **has a semantics and it is, by definition, something which involves a kind of reflection, implied by the semantics itself.** I might even go as far as to say that thought *just is* formal and conceptual semantics applied as an envelope to more primitive organizations of even more primitive structures. This is how something could perceive the color red and merely *behave* but not think. Returning to the house analogy, sense data might be something like the raw materials. These are already pre-cut lumber by the time they reach the brain, thanks to the upstream work of the lumber mill (our sensory neurons). Perception would be the interactions between the plans and the raw materials that begin to assemble the home's basic structure. Finally, it's the living within the home by a family that is thought. All of those materials that went into the home could be used for a different home, that is, they have an intrinsic value. Each piece or section of the home is something representative of the final cause of any home, the way that place is to be used. The point is this is something generative, with levels of assembly, and perceptions don't have to ever reach the level of being a home - perceptions can disappear or be deconstructed. Thought can 'move in' to these structures as a kind of formal and conceptual semantics that gives them a *sense*. A house is not a home until it is sensed that it is. >How do we know percepts exist at all? I think we can infer it logically. Pretend I place you in a room with a lamp. Your body and the lamp are 10 ft. apart. I ask you, "Do you *see* the lamp?" In effect, what it is to see the lamp is a complex process involving sense data, perception, and thought (because you've now been asked to reflect). Let's say that besides you, I've brought in some controls to test in other rooms. 1. I can infer the existence of sense data by placing an opaque screen between one person and their lamp. If the person cannot see the lamp, then this external wall has prevented something involved in the chain of mental representation. It doesn't seem to have prevented sensing all things, or thought itself, so it is logically preventing some primitive kind of information from obtaining. We'd call that sense data. 2. I can infer the existence of percepts if I obliterate someone's visual cortex. It should be possible to study whether cells in the retina and optic nerve are active in the presence of the lamp light, but if I ask this person whether they *see* the lamp, and they say 'No', I'd wager that something is now missing between the sense data and the thought. Such a person who cannot see is still able to *understand* what a lamp is, or what light is, and the basic sense of what I'm asking about *a priori*. They just can't see it. By analogy, the raw materials for the house are all sitting on pallets in the yard, but there are no plans to assemble them. 3. Here is where things get interesting. As I see it, **there is no logical way to infer thought** except through the direct report from the subject. Two problems become interesting to me. >(a) Someone could say that I've made an error in (3). A machine could be subjected to each of these tests and could be made to demonstrate the same results, even down to being able to report that it is seeing. So the question as it concerns *thought* becomes whether it must be attended by **qualia**. Moreover, if reporting is the best we can do, how do we rule out that the machine is (or is not) having a conscious experience? >(b) Can thought actually be separated ontologically from sense data and percepts? I believe this one is particularly important. To see what I mean, imagine that we could grow fully functional human brains, identical in structure and all empirical signs of activity as any healthy human brain. Suppose we did this for a brain in a vat. This assumes a brain without *any* sensory inputs (ignore that it may be impossible to eliminate *all* sensory input). Could such a brain have thoughts? We could get into all kinds of philosophical debate about this. I've already gone on for too long, so I'd leave on this idea: that whatever human mind is, a part of its very nature cannot be separated from its *embodiment* in an environment. The brain itself happens inside of a body, which is in communication with itself and the environment. Brains do not just grow absent their relations to the world. @PS is someone who could talk about this notion much more aptly than I am able. There is this notion that things which are intelligible in nature only have this property of being intelligible because they inhere as the result of a Substantial Form. This is true of the lamp, and it is why *thoughts* about the lamp have the character they do, which is to say why they have their *logical sense* and *qualia*. However, what is true of the lamp is also true of the human person: we inhere as the result of a Substantial Form, and this is what we refer to when we say *we have a soul*. The soul is the Form of the human person. Another way to think about it would be to consider it as the 'missing piece', which being absent even having our 1. sense data, 2. perceptual organization, and 3. otherwise fully functioning brain, would prevent authentic conscious thought from happening. In the brain-in-a-vat example, we might think there exists a way to 'record' the mental activities of that brain in a way that would produce a linguistic representation *if* they were occurring in such a way as to have any meaning. Would we expect such a brain to have an 'inner life' where it depicted certain kinds of images and imaginary events according to categories of space, time, causality, etc? Incidentally, some people might jump to the conclusion that primitive archetypes like Jung's would still be here, but I argue that isn't the case. Implicit in Jung's theories is a Lamarckian ontology: we pass through all of the phases of our race in the womb. To grow a brain in a vat is to grow something separately from the very generative pleroma of the 'conscious field' of the mother (if you will). There is a real sense in which we 'fall into' or 'jump into' life like we are jumping into a stream. You don't start or stop this thing. You get on the ride while it is already in motion. The potential that exists in the human Form (soul) is actualized in a very specific way, one life begetting another within the cosmically important womb. The point here is the notion of a thinking brain which has been grown isolated from both a body and an environment is unlikely to have conscious thought. What, after all, truly makes the brain-in-a-vat with all of its wired connections to this or that readout machine altogether different from the machine we mentioned earlier? To me, it's that we are on a stream, a flowing river, that man cannot recreate. It's been flowing. It was already flowing when we became conscious enough to realize we were being pulled along by the current. Life begets life. You don't start a new stream in the one which you are already riding: it's all one stream. Even so-called conscious machines are just going to be elaborations *of man*, not a new stream, but extensions of the existing one - they carry within them something derived from us, a Logos. I'm ranting. I get like this sometimes. >And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there something, but information may be transmitted between mediums that act as representations at all. You would have probably been very interested in a theory introduced to me by @PS called CSI (Complex Specified Information). That resulted in some really enlightening conversations, but it pertains to precisely what you are intuiting above. I completely agree with you, btw. >Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about entropy. In one way of thinking, called Shannon-Weaver information, the information content of a string is its entropy. I do think you'd find the topic of CSI pretty engaging given your interest in this idea. Here is a paper by Dembski that explains the underlying logic. https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/dembski-william-22the-logical-underpinnings-of-intelligent-design22.pdf For what it's worth, I spent weeks trying to refute CSI as I debated PS on the issue. Not only was I unable to do it, I wound up becoming convinced that it's true. If I get time I can try to dig up a conversation we had at Poal back in January sometime. What became apparent to me was that information is tied to symmetry. >This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this. Yours as well; we have our moments, don't we. We aren't as active as we were months ago, but this sort of thing is always enjoyable. @KingOfWhiteAmerica

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But what is nothing? ...

In CTMU cosmogony, “nothingness” is informationally defined as zero constraint or pure freedom (unbound telesis or UBT), and the apparent construction of the universe is explained as a self-restriction of this potential. CTMU

Nothing, like anything else, is then a "self-restriction" on the unbound potential afforded by "nothingness". Every last "thing", right down to the last particle or even "nothing" itself, can be understood as a "self simulation" of (n) appearing as (n-*).

The "Holofractal" theory explores the idea that each particle is a simulation of the larger universe, where the "vacuum energy" of each particle is identical to the total energy of the system it inhabits.

Another way to describe "nothingness" is "infinite mass", owing to its boundless form as a mathematical point. Since an Infinite Mass condenses to a point, and since mass = potential, infinite mass = unbound potential. Since it's "infinite", it must have the means of its own realization (sentience), and the means of it's own "non realization" (volitional consciousness).

...the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing.

A bit of "Zen" grammar resolves things here. Suppose instead we say ...

The mind can produce "no-thought" which refers (directly and without subject/object division) to "nothing(ness)".

I realize this is a cheap Zen "parlor trick", to use terms like "no mind" or "no thought", yet that's literally the issue at hand if we want to understand reality as like an "empty set".

...scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n).

I've never see a single shred of evidence which supports the notion that (n-1) has greater explanatory power than (n). That's like saying 10-1 is a better description of 10 than 10. It's one thing to talk about science, but there's a thin line between scientific inquiry and the outright dictatorship of terms, and the "Universities" and their Academic mouthpieces are clearly on the dictatorship side of the isle.

If we presume objects in the (n-1) domain are subject to scientific observations, it makes little to zero sense to presume (n) isn't also subject to observations as well, even if we can't properly call them "scientific" observations in the traditional sense of "technologization".

The moment we realize (n) is indeed subject to "realization", the "meaning of life" becomes quite clear, as there's no other apparent means for (n) to be realized other than in the suspension of the very thing which makes (n) unrecognizable: namely the suspension of volition (karma). Volition serves the dual role of concealing the Absolute (n) for the sake of the very possibility of realizing the Absolute upon the suspension of volition (karma). Without concealment, revelation isn't possible.

Upon its realization, the (n) is understood as "empty", like an empty set, in the sense that it has boundary conditions, yet it generates precisely zero information about itself. The realization of "eternally pure stasis" (ie, God's grace, Nirvana) is the identification of (n).

Operations on (n-1...) offer technological advancement, but nothing in the way of "explaining" the (n) ultimately being operated on. This is why we can have satellites and supercomputers, but nothing approaching an explanation of reality. The conflation of science for technology amounts to the supposition and virtual insistence that (n) can't be subject to inquiry. Academic theories of science refer back only to the "university" from whence they originate, not to the "universe" (n) which they're falsely purported to be investigating. Claims of a forthcoming "theory of everything" are pure politics, and made for the same reasons politicians tell lies. The (-1) part of the (n-1) equation is ultimately the "self", which apparently seeks preservation at any cost. The alienation, from virtually everyone, associated with realizing the Absolute (n) is reason enough to avoid going down that rabbit hole; but for some of us, it was our fate.

...

I had another sort of realization just recently, that "relative motion" can't be motion whatsoever. Einstein understood this: whatever appears as "matter" or "motion" is just space-time curled-up and curved in higher dimensions. In fact, "motion" and "relative" can't exist whatsoever without a backdrop of eternal stasis, as there would otherwise be no grounds for "relativity" to proceed.

The appearance of motion is really just the "empty set" (n) operating on itself. Self realization is the realization that "self" is just another way of (n) operating on itself. Ultimately, the "self" which comes to "self realization" is the very (n) we're not supposed to have explanations for.

It's clear from a "dictatorship" POV that individual human subjects realizing (n) is the very antithesis of wielding power over them, and hence we can regard society as one big distraction away form the very sort of self-awareness which would render dictators absolutely powerless.

I had something typed out, but then I typed something else, and then my computer crashed. It's just as well, since every time I compose a response it's different. So I'll just throw-down these ideas for now. >But what is nothing? ... >*In CTMU cosmogony, “nothingness” is informationally defined as zero constraint or pure freedom (unbound telesis or UBT), and the apparent construction of the universe is explained as a self-restriction of this potential.* CTMU Nothing, like anything else, is then a "self-restriction" on the unbound potential afforded by "nothingness". Every last "thing", right down to the last particle or even "nothing" itself, can be understood as a "self simulation" of (n) appearing as (n-*). The "Holofractal" theory explores the idea that each particle is a simulation of the larger universe, where the "vacuum energy" of each particle is identical to the total energy of the system it inhabits. Another way to describe "nothingness" is "infinite mass", owing to its boundless form as a mathematical point. Since an Infinite Mass condenses to a point, and since mass = potential, infinite mass = unbound potential. Since it's "infinite", it must have the means of its own realization (sentience), and the means of it's own "non realization" (volitional consciousness). >...the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing. A bit of "Zen" grammar resolves things here. Suppose instead we say ... >The mind can produce "no-thought" which refers (directly and without subject/object division) to "nothing(ness)". I realize this is a cheap Zen "parlor trick", to use terms like "no mind" or "no thought", yet that's literally the issue at hand if we want to understand reality as like an "empty set". >...scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n). I've never see a single shred of evidence which supports the notion that (n-1) has greater explanatory power than (n). That's like saying 10-1 is a better description of 10 than 10. It's one thing to talk about science, but there's a thin line between scientific inquiry and the outright dictatorship of terms, and the "Universities" and their Academic mouthpieces are clearly on the dictatorship side of the isle. If we presume objects in the (n-1) domain are subject to scientific observations, it makes little to zero sense to presume (n) isn't also subject to observations as well, even if we can't properly call them "scientific" observations in the traditional sense of "technologization". The moment we realize (n) is indeed subject to "realization", the "meaning of life" becomes quite clear, as there's no other apparent means for (n) to be realized other than in the suspension of the very thing which makes (n) unrecognizable: namely the suspension of volition (karma). Volition serves the dual role of concealing the Absolute (n) for the sake of the very possibility of realizing the Absolute upon the suspension of volition (karma). Without concealment, revelation isn't possible. Upon its realization, the (n) is understood as "empty", like an empty set, in the sense that it has boundary conditions, yet it generates precisely zero information about itself. The realization of "eternally pure stasis" (ie, God's grace, Nirvana) is the identification of (n). Operations on (n-1...) offer technological advancement, but nothing in the way of "explaining" the (n) ultimately being operated on. This is why we can have satellites and supercomputers, but nothing approaching an explanation of reality. The conflation of science for technology amounts to the supposition and virtual insistence that (n) can't be subject to inquiry. Academic theories of science refer back only to the "university" from whence they originate, not to the "universe" (n) which they're falsely purported to be investigating. Claims of a forthcoming "theory of everything" are pure politics, and made for the same reasons politicians tell lies. The (-1) part of the (n-1) equation is ultimately the "self", which apparently seeks preservation at any cost. The alienation, from virtually everyone, associated with realizing the Absolute (n) is reason enough to avoid going down that rabbit hole; but for some of us, it was our fate. ... I had another sort of realization just recently, that "relative motion" can't be motion whatsoever. Einstein understood this: whatever appears as "matter" or "motion" is just space-time curled-up and curved in higher dimensions. In fact, "motion" and "relative" can't exist whatsoever without a backdrop of eternal stasis, as there would otherwise be no grounds for "relativity" to proceed. The appearance of motion is really just the "empty set" (n) operating on itself. Self realization is the realization that "self" is just another way of (n) operating on itself. Ultimately, the "self" which comes to "self realization" is the very (n) we're not supposed to have explanations for. It's clear from a "dictatorship" POV that individual human subjects realizing (n) is the very antithesis of wielding power over them, and hence we can regard society as one big distraction away form the very sort of self-awareness which would render dictators absolutely powerless.

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I've never see a single shred of evidence which supports the notion that (n-1) has greater explanatory power than (n).

Yes, I made an error here. I am playing with the cardinality of a set, but I'm doing the impossible of jumping back and forth between numbers and concepts. For example, (n) would be the universe as a set of concept (things with essences), where science reduces that model to (n-x) and reduces the number of concepts within the universe, while actually increasing the number of elements in the set. Concepts decrease, but number of 'particles' increase. I can't do this in one variable, and I'd have to start modeling it as a relation between the particle view of the universe and essentialism, and then I'd have to get into mapping it as ordered pairs onto some space that I don't understand. It would be way beyond me.

It's clear from a "dictatorship" POV that individual human subjects realizing (n) is the very antithesis of wielding power over them, and hence we can regard society as one big distraction away form the very sort of self-awareness which would render dictators absolutely powerless.

I agree completely.

I had another sort of realization just recently, that "relative motion" can't be motion whatsoever. Einstein understood this: whatever appears as "matter" or "motion" is just space-time curled-up and curved in higher dimensions. In fact, "motion" and "relative" can't exist whatsoever without a backdrop of eternal stasis, as there would otherwise be no grounds for "relativity" to proceed.

This is fascinating to me, but I am not sure I completely understand it. If you ever get free time and want to expand on it, make a post or something. I know PS and myself would be interested in this sort of thing. You could even throw it in /LogosRising or the /Philosophy sub.

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I've had other thoughts about the "empty set" idea, based on CTMU principles.

*The Principle of Attributive (Topological-Descriptive, State-Syntax) Duality Where points belong to sets and lines are relations between points, a form of duality also holds between sets and relations or attributes, and thus between set theory and logic*. ...

Essentially, any containment relationship can be interpreted in two ways: in terms of position with respect to bounding lines or surfaces or hypersurfaces, as in point set topology and its geometric refinements (⊃T), or in terms of descriptive distribution relationships, as in the Venn-diagrammatic grammar of logical substitution (⊃D). ...

Because states express topologically while the syntactic structures of their underlying operators express descriptively, attributive duality is sometimes called state-syntax duality. CTMU

My idea is that "set theory" is related to "point set topology and its geometric refinements", namely as a means of describing "motion (or duration) in space". This gives us a model conforming to our senses, yet senses have been wrong before (eg. Geocentrism). Our senses never changed once the truth (eg. Heliocentrism) became widely realized, just the model we used to interpret them.

Via 21st century standards, the model we need is one describing how and why computation (cognition) is universal, the question begged by today's common interpretations of "objects in space" or a "field". If these objects can be calculated (particularly objects many millions or billions of light years away), then why should calculations about them be a universal process, in advance of any actual calculations performed by scientists, unless the universe is fundamentally cognitive?

Because set theory is directly analogous to "descriptive distribution relationships" aka Venn diagrams, the key to describing reality as an "empty set" is akin to describing it as a Venn diagram containing everything. Since the diagram "contains everything", it appears to contain absolutely nothing, in the sense there are no "descriptive distribution relationships" depicted by it.

*Constructive-Filtrative Duality Any set that can be constructed by adding elements to the space between two brackets can be defined by restriction on the set of all possible sets. Restriction involves the Venn-like superposition of constraints that are subtractive in nature; thus, it is like a subtractive color process involving the stacking of filters. Elements, on the other hand, are additive, and the process of constructing sets is thus additive...* CTMU

So if "Any set that can be constructed by adding elements to the space between two brackets can be defined by restriction on the set of all possible sets.", then can an empty set be defined by zero-restriction on the set of all possible sets?

I think if we define the empty set as "zero-restriction on the set of all possible sets", then we can define the universe as an empty set. Because the empty set can't have any "descriptive distribution relationships", it's empty, yet also because it can't have any such relationships with or among other things, the empty set must have "descriptive distribution relationships" (and point-set topology) as intrinsic compliment to itself, for the "realization" of itself.

You stated...

Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements.

I think this is directly related to the "realization" I had about "motion = illusion". Motion appears from a local perspective, but from the global perspective it can't exist. There's nothing for the global-reality to move with respect to. Any apparent motion or duration is always and only with respect to other objects, and no favored perspective of motion exists in "Relativity".

The only "absolute necessity" I can muster is "self containment" which entails "self description" and "self realization", all of which happens regardless if the universe is actually "nothing", or if it's "something" which appears as "nothing" at the global scale.

The universe could just as well exist as "nothing", entirely without "elements" for a virtual eternity and also have elements, but not the other way around. In other words, the universe can't just be "nothing", it must appear as "some things" for the very sake of "self containment", which ultimately entails life and consciousness in the bargain.

The thing about the "empty set" is that its still a set, which mean it can be realized in the very sense requiring conscious, particularly questioning beings like us to ultimately realize what "exist forever" means.

Religions talk about "life after death", but seemingly take this too literally. The religious "death" is allegory for stillness of mind. When stilled, the mind defaults to its eternal state (infinite mass/potential, pure freedom), and only then is the "meaning of life" fully revealed, since "pure freedom" must somehow include its own realization or else it's not eternal nor "reality".

The CTMU addresses many of these issues, as dictated by John Wheeler's prior analysis.

No continuum: The venerable continuum of analysis and mechanics is a mathematical and physical chimera....As Wheeler puts it: “A half-century of development in the sphere of mathematical logic has made it clear that there is no evidence supporting the belief in the existential character of the number continuum.”

No space or time: Again, there is “no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum.” ... Wheeler quotes Einstein in a Kantian vein: “Time and space are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live”, regarding these modes as derivable from a proper theory of reality as idealized functions of an idealized continuum: “We will not feed time into any deep-reaching account of existence. We must derive time—and time only in the continuum idealization—out of it. Likewise with space.” CTMU (quoting Wheeler quoting Einstein & Kant)

An "infinite mass" suffices for the physical description of the universe, as such a mass has the required potential to "self replicate" in the form of "realizing itself" via cognitive agents (us humans for example).

The "necessary" elements in reality aren't the physical elements per-se, but the "non distinction" holding between objects and observer, namely between reality as the "empty set" and the very observation of that empty set (Nirvana). The contingent elements exist for the sake of the realization of the non-contingent. The non-contingent neither exists nor "not exists".

I've had other thoughts about the "empty set" idea, based on CTMU principles. >***The Principle of Attributive (Topological-Descriptive, State-Syntax) Duality** Where points belong to sets and lines are relations between points, a form of duality also holds between sets and relations or attributes, and thus between set theory and logic*. ... >*Essentially, any containment relationship can be interpreted in two ways: in terms of position with respect to bounding lines or surfaces or hypersurfaces, as in point set topology and its geometric refinements (⊃T), or in terms of descriptive distribution relationships, as in the Venn-diagrammatic grammar of logical substitution (⊃D).* ... >*Because states express topologically while the syntactic structures of their underlying operators express descriptively, attributive duality is sometimes called state-syntax duality.* CTMU My idea is that "set theory" is related to "point set topology and its geometric refinements", namely as a means of describing "motion (or duration) in space". This gives us a model conforming to our senses, yet senses have been wrong before (eg. Geocentrism). Our senses never changed once the truth (eg. Heliocentrism) became widely realized, just the model we used to interpret them. Via 21st century standards, the model we need is one describing how and why computation (cognition) is universal, the question begged by today's common interpretations of "objects in space" or a "field". If these objects can be calculated (particularly objects many millions or billions of light years away), then why should calculations about them be a universal process, in advance of any actual calculations performed by scientists, unless the universe is fundamentally cognitive? Because set theory is directly analogous to "descriptive distribution relationships" aka Venn diagrams, the key to describing reality as an "empty set" is akin to describing it as a Venn diagram containing everything. Since the diagram "contains everything", it appears to contain absolutely nothing, in the sense there are no "descriptive distribution relationships" depicted by it. >***Constructive-Filtrative Duality** Any set that can be constructed by adding elements to the space between two brackets can be defined by restriction on the set of all possible sets. Restriction involves the Venn-like superposition of constraints that are subtractive in nature; thus, it is like a subtractive color process involving the stacking of filters. Elements, on the other hand, are additive, and the process of constructing sets is thus additive...* CTMU So if "Any set that can be constructed by adding elements to the space between two brackets can be defined by restriction on the set of all possible sets.", then can an empty set be defined by zero-restriction on the set of all possible sets? I think if we define the empty set as "zero-restriction on the set of all possible sets", then we can define the universe as an empty set. Because the empty set can't have any "descriptive distribution relationships", it's empty, yet also because it can't have any such relationships with or among other things, the empty set must have "descriptive distribution relationships" (and point-set topology) as intrinsic compliment to itself, for the "realization" of itself. You stated... >*Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements.* I think this is directly related to the "realization" I had about "motion = illusion". Motion appears from a local perspective, but from the global perspective it can't exist. There's nothing for the global-reality to move with respect to. Any apparent motion or duration is always and only with respect to other objects, and no favored perspective of motion exists in "Relativity". The only "absolute necessity" I can muster is "self containment" which entails "self description" and "self realization", all of which happens regardless if the universe is actually "nothing", or if it's "something" which appears as "nothing" at the global scale. The universe could just as well exist as "nothing", entirely without "elements" for a virtual eternity *and* also have elements, but not the other way around. In other words, the universe can't just be "nothing", it must appear as "some things" for the very sake of "self containment", which ultimately entails life and consciousness in the bargain. The thing about the "empty set" is that its still a set, which mean it can be realized in the very sense requiring conscious, particularly questioning beings like us to ultimately realize what "exist forever" means. Religions talk about "life after death", but seemingly take this too literally. The religious "death" is allegory for stillness of mind. When stilled, the mind defaults to its eternal state (infinite mass/potential, pure freedom), and only then is the "meaning of life" fully revealed, since "pure freedom" must somehow include its own realization or else it's not eternal nor "reality". The CTMU addresses many of these issues, as dictated by John Wheeler's prior analysis. >***No continuum***: *The venerable continuum of analysis and mechanics is a mathematical and physical chimera....As Wheeler puts it: “A half-century of development in the sphere of mathematical logic has made it clear that there is no evidence supporting the belief in the existential character of the number continuum.”* >***No space or time:*** *Again, there is “no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum.” ... Wheeler quotes Einstein in a Kantian vein: “Time and space are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live”, regarding these modes as derivable from a proper theory of reality as idealized functions of an idealized continuum: “We will not feed time into any deep-reaching account of existence. We must derive time—and time only in the continuum idealization—out of it. Likewise with space.”* CTMU (quoting Wheeler quoting Einstein & Kant) An "infinite mass" suffices for the physical description of the universe, as such a mass has the required potential to "self replicate" in the form of "realizing itself" via cognitive agents (us humans for example). The "necessary" elements in reality aren't the physical elements per-se, but the "non distinction" holding between objects and observer, namely between reality as the "empty set" and the very observation of that empty set (Nirvana). The contingent elements exist for the sake of the realization of the non-contingent. The non-contingent neither exists nor "not exists".