From nothing, or anything, comes a unique origin for structure

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1. On First Cause
2. First steps: The General Principle of Equivalence
3. Building a sturdy ontology.
4. The cataclysm that attends the General Principle of Equivalence
5. On the structure available to possible worlds.
6. Boundary conditions of the world - the Cartesian view.
7. On denoting and the laws of thought.
8. Something for nothing, and why this is not absurd.


8. Something from nothing.

Can there be an empty world?

NOTE: THIS PAGE IS NOT QUITE FINISHED AS I NEED TO INSERT SOME SYMBOLS. Also, I am working to explain the abstractions better

To start at the very beginning, I use the ideas of denotation covered in the previous post. For those who found that heavy going, don't sweat it.

When I consider an empty world, I am presupposing that my idea of there being just nothingness and nothing else, corresponds to some omnet of the Cartesian system. If there is no such possibility for the existence of an empty world, by implication from the General Principle of Equivalence, then that denotation does not carry, it does not express an actuality of any world. That is, I can dismiss it as a candidate for acceptance as an element of my actual ontology. I might even have shown that it has no place in a possible ontology.

Under the General Principle of Equivalence, an empty world is still a possible world. Because it has all its assets, at least the asset of being itself or none other than itself, then should there be an empty world, it at least has unique identity. If there is an empty world, it certainly meets the criteria of being a pure asset, for it cannot be further reduced.

This concept of identity is non-vague in an ontological sense, because an omnet of nothingness has all its assets, which is a boundary condition that the General Principle of Equivalence expresses directly, and even the idea is bounded: one cannot conceive of it having a non boundary without first presupposing some form of dimensionality into which it could extend, but this would be wholly inconsistent with the idea of an empty world. This boundary need not be equated with a physical boundary. A boundary condition implies a boundary. Let the fact that it has identity be that boundary condition. If there are other boundary conditions such as a lack of extension, this does not add to or take from the concept.

I want the reader to re-read the above, for it is not an easy concept, but the concept applies to all omnets, not just nothingness. Only once this boundary concept is properly understood should one progress. Just as is done in mathematics, where we begin with a set of objects that might be counted, then get the idea of number, then remove the objects altogether and retain the idea of number, so is this boundary concept. One cannot properly gain a concrete idea of the boundary, and it is both unnecessary and dangerous to say that the boundary is like this or that. Rather, leave it as a term that refers to an asset of each omnet. Know only that every omnet has its assets, and this implies that it is whole, and as such it is complete. This completeness, no more than an expression and implication of the GPE, implies that there is a metaphysical point at which what a thing is, runs out. There need be no 'outside' the boundary, for indeed there is as yet no foundation shown for dimensions. But there is a boundary, and boundary is just the name given to this particular facet of the GPE as it acts on what is.

(A note for physicists: I am not talking about boundary and no-boundary conditions used in cosmology here, that is a wholly different idea that presupposes space, time and who knows what else. The idea is abstract, but the structure is an actuality of all omnets.)

(A note for philosophers: Some of you will hold that my idea of nothingness is wrong, for nothingness is the absence of any particular. Firstly consider the idea of omnets nominally, and hence that the term stands in for nothingness as much as anything. Secondly, apply your own brand of skepticism - this should lead you to see that making a distinction between nothing and something as being somehow different to the distinction between something and some other thing is a very odd supposition. The Cartesian meditator finds all are suspect, so none has the preferred view until it is tested by some strong principle. That principle is the GPE, which stands king.)

If the rules pressed on us by Sorensen’s metaphysician hold (see earlier posts), it rests with those who object to now show how there can be no boundary. Having such identity, the empty world is bounded, and together this forms the minimal possible world.

The boundary of a boundary.

Now, a boundary, simply being a boundary, without needing to know its ‘internal’ nature, knowing only that it has some positive existence, frees the meditator from the need to make comparisons with some presupposed meaning created in the World-of-Seeming. The meditator can assert that for the presupposition of there being an empty world, this is not possible, because there must be at least a boundary, as omnet. Hence we find no support for the supposition that there can be nothing and only nothing. Utilising our earlier symbolism, we can denote this absence as /nothing, meaning the denotation of the presupposed nothing does not express a reality.

Cause and effect
But now comes cause and effect. A boundary, being a boundary, and for which no understanding of its ‘internal’ nature is important, also has identity under the General Principle of Equivalence. So it too is bounded. This leads to an iterative generation of boundaries.
Let '>>>' be a relation of consequence following from the General Principle of Equivalence. Then

0>>>{0}>>>{{0}}>>>{{{0}}}>>>{0}subN

where N represents the number of iterations and {} represents a boundary. The idea of one dimensional space is not intended here, for space hasn't been shown to exist yet, just that there is a structure. I will return to the concept of number later and will discuss the meaning of the symbol 0, as well as what this symbol denotes, for reasons that will become clear later. In the interim, note only that the symbol 0 need not represent nothingness - it can represent any pure asset. The claim that the boundaries come into being is iterative, is supported by the recognition that a boundary cannot be bounded until it has some basis for existence, so in this way, each boundary has ontological priority over that which bounds it. However, a second view is available, that the converse is valid, meaning that for a boundary to have identity it must first be bounded. If so, then this implies an infinity of boundaries all at once. Which is the case? This matter reduces to ontological dependence, which I will discuss in my next post.