Is it logically possible for there to be absolutely nothing between two points of reality

[setarcos]

I take it that you mean matter as reality.

Don’t forget to include the frame of reference from which we experience reality. As such, matter is real and it really effects our perspective.

the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.

With this quote in mind, realize what those who believe in the Christian God are taking as fact that creation exists and that it is the source of that creation. That is that God is the source and sustainer of all creation. It would be no wonder that at the most fundamental levels of matter we would find that matter holds its existence in nothing but potential until the wave function collapses. This collapse would be initiated by God. It is after all a fact that things exist and it is after this fact that we recognize that this is so. What Heisenberg is saying I believe is that it is meaningless to describe the reality of a particular chunk of matter as a fact since the fact cannot be determined at any particular point in reality without altering the fact of its reality. Keep in mind though that even potentiality would be a factor which could only hold a meaningful existence if it existed in reality. An absence of reality between two points would be an absence of any potential change between those two points, be it dimensional or otherwise.

 

[setarcos]

An absolute vacuum is a thing and can only be defined if it existed in reality. Vacuums are defined by boundaries. An absolute vacuum is defined by an absence of all matter not of all reality. There still exists in the vacuum potentiality. As such keep in mind that absolute vacuums are not defined as absolutely empty of everything in reality. It would be different to describe two different universes, for instance, as having an absolute vacuum separating them versus having an absence of reality separating them.

 

[setarcos]

The “two physical realities” exist in the same universe, right? Then, the answer to your question is ‘no’.

Isn’t he asking about two universes existing in separate realities? Is it possible to have two separate realities “exist” simultaneously? It not why not? Can it be that we can have multiple realities separated by no reality or actually have no meaningful way of saying they are separated but it be meaningful for them to retain their individual identities?

 

[Gorgias]

An absolute vacuum is a thing and can only be defined if it existed in reality.

Yes, I agree. I think that this is the answer to the OP.

Isn’t he asking about two universes existing in separate realities? Is it possible to have two separate realities “exist” simultaneously?

I don’t know if I’d call distinct universes in a multiverse “separate realities”?

 

[setarcos]

I don’t know if I’d call distinct universes in a multiverse “separate realities”?

That is the question. I’d consider a multiverse containing a set of distinct universes, each with its own laws and elements unique to themselves, a single reality. Another question would be, “Can these distinct universes within this one reality lack any of this reality between them and if so what would this mean as we consider each of these universes as distinct from each other?” In a multiverse it may be that outside the elements “universes” comprising the set “reality” of which they are a part there is no reality and consequently no reality between them rendering the question of separation between them meaningless.

 

[setarcos]

You’ve presented some good questions and things to contemplate. As you’ve said, can any of this be useful or “knowable” beyond a mere mental exercise? Is the mental exercise itself an aspect and result of the reality we are in? Can contemplating the unknowable be of any use and if so what? I myself have abandoned the philosophical theory of solipsism as it seems to collapse under its own self reference. I know reality from my own conscience perspective and yes there are no good reasons why I shouldn’t believe that since reality exists for me only as I experience it then I may be the source of said reality…except I also know for a fact that the reality I experience is one in which I experience as a reaction and not a conscious author of. This eliminates the creation of reality as having a source solely from “my” conscious awareness. Now one may say, we are more than our “conscious” awareness. We also have a subconscious of which we are not consciously aware and this may be the source of our creation of reality but then we must ask ourselves what it means to create or be the author of our own reality? The thing solipsism says can only be proven to exist is ourselves and the reality we experience through the self. In other words nothing meaningful exists outside this self. Does this then include the ghost in our own machine? That is the processes which produce experienced results of which we are consciously unaware? We know it exists since the self consciously experiences the results, it just isn’t aware of the formulas used to make the results. We are not self aware of creating the results of which we are aware. What reason have we to believe this “ghost” in our machine is something which is inherent solely to the entity we consider to be “ourselves” since it arises outside our awareness? And the rules by which it creates reality must also therefore exist outside our awareness rendering the question of whether we, whoever you consider “we” is, as being author of our own reality a meaningless question. To say that our awareness reacts to the reality our “ghost in the machine” creates following rules it itself may or may not create outside our own awareness is indistinguishable from a reality created outside of what we identify as the self that reacts to this reality. In other words there is indeed a reality outside of the thing we consider to be the conscious self which reacts to this reality. If solipsism insists that only the self which is aware can be proven then I believe it has been shown to be disproven. Does this make reasonable sense?

 

[Dovekin]

a multiverse it may be that outside the elements “universes” comprising the set “reality” of which they are a part there is no reality and consequently no reality between them rendering the question of separation between them meaningless.

The idea is that they are separated by singularities that isolate them. One universe here, another beyond the event horizon/black hole.

 

[setarcos]

Be that as it may even singularities which separate or isolate the universes from each other must exist in reality in order to do so. The singularity itself is the thing in reality distinguished from that which it separates. One then would come to the boundary of one universe but not in entering another universes boundary as they are distinguished between themselves but in encountering a impermeable barrier. In such a case the two universes actually have something between them, a barrier of commonality. That is a thing in reality which they both have in common. The conjecture presents a multiverse who’s universes it contains have no reality between them and consequently nothing in reality between them. What then would keep them as separate entities in the reality they are both in? Consider perhaps that even a traversal from one universe to another would require some sort of reality to take place in. a dimension to move through, time to expend energy, etc. The lack of reality between the universes would then itself become a barrier. Would such a thing behave as I have presented it or would a lack of reality simply mean no barrier to speak of between the universes except their own unique identities - laws etc. ?

 

[Russell_SA]

Yes, logic is just presenting an idea within an agreed upon set of parameters of what the language is describing.
Is it actually possible? That is studying reality to see what is possible based on what reality indicates when you study reality regardless of your logical conclusion. Reality will tell you what is actually possible regardless of your logical conclusions about it. Or are you implying that all our logically correct hypothesis were found to be true once we tested them against reality? You can be logically correct and yet factually wrong.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Thinking about them as islands makes it harder because there is something between them. If there was nothing between them, they would be touching each other.

 

[AlNg]

if physical time is discrete, there is nothing between two adjacent moments,

Not if quantum uncertainty holds since in that case there would be a fuzziness between two closely nearby points, which are themselves fuzzy quantities.

 

[setarcos]

If the Christian God exists then it would be impossible for anything to separate you from God since you actually hold your existence within Gods sustaining influences. You mind is not separated from Gods “mind” because your mind’s source is God’s “mind”. Our limited and finite perspective is what keeps us from recognizing or even understanding this unseparated condition. What separates your mind from my mind would be the frame of reference used within this “Mind” of God. That is we our separated from each other in our individual existence within God’s Mind from our perspective but unseparated from each other as mutual elements having our existence contingent upon the same source which is God.

 

[setarcos]

Yes, I follow your reasoning. It would seem to me at least though that you’ve demonstrated the limitations of solipsism In that though one can only personally vouch for a perception of certain elements of reality as one personally experiences them you’ve also shown that something outside of personal experience exists. If something outside of ones personal experience can be shown to hold a separate existence regardless of your personal experience of it then solipsism does not stand as a viable philosophy since you’ve proven the existence of something without recourse to ones personal experience of said thing in order to do it. As for getting to choose what one is I have to disagree since so many factors come into play which one is unaware of that may influence those choices you make. After all you’ve already shown that there are processes which exist that you know exist because of your perception of your own existence but of which you do not know how the processes themselves function in their existence. That is you cant perceive how they arose in the first place.

 

[IWantGod]

but…can my existence be differentiated from existence itself?

That’s the Big Question.

I think this is one of the best philosophical questions because it gets right to the fundamental core of everything. What does it mean for something like you and i to exist?

I am not entirely sure that one can provide a-prior evidence for or against the idea that we are all one existence. But there are good deductive reasons to think that your mind does not exist in the same way as something that is necessarily actual exists. It’s the reality of change that presents the main problem for any monist or pantheistic view.

If a thing exists necessarily, then it is necessarily nothing else but what it is necessarily. Which means it cannot become something else, some other nature, some other form etc, because it is necessarily not that thing; it is only what it necessarily is forever. And neither can one say that such a thing has unrealized potential, because any unrealized potential would not be necessarily real and therefore not intrinsic to the nature of that which is necessarily real. So what ever is fundamental-reality (whatever you want to call it), it is something that is not changing, and in so far as it’s actuality, it has what Christians call the “fullness of reality” in the sense that it has no unrealized potential; it is and has always been everything that it could possibly be.

When it comes to me and you, we always have unrealized potential, we are always thinking another thought, having another feeling, performing another task. We are always becoming. We are in a process, we are changing regardless of whether or not physical reality is objective. Thus we are distinct from that which is fundamental reality insofar as we are not necessarily actual.

Thus while i cannot give you an explanation of how it is possible for us to be distinct from that which is necessarily real, i can argue that we are evidently distinct insomuch as we are in a process of realization because that which is necessarily actual is never potentially actual.

Thus if we exist at all it must be said that it is by the power of fundamental reality that we have a being, and our being is sustained in reality by that which is necessarily actual.

 

[sevenswords]

Yes my bank account and my wallet.
Broke as a church mouse…

 

[setarcos]

can my existence be differentiated from existence itself?

I would say that this is a problem of semantics. Existence is not, in my understanding, a thing in itself but a classification applied to other things. It is a quality which some thing may have. So to ask if my existence can be differentiated from the quality of having existence would be an error of classification. What we our proving is that other things other than myself can be classified as having existence which does not depend on my experience of them to do so. I am only able to experience the effects of what ever their source is.

are the three things that I can know to exist, three separate things, or simply three aspects of the same thing?

Again I think in order to answer this we need to better define some terms. What do you mean by aspects of a thing and when do you consider a thing separate from the whole in which it is found? Are these three separate things with no aspects in common between them? I don’t think so since they each share at least the aspect of existence. Are these three aspects of the same thing? If you consider aspects as only parts of the whole in which they hold their existence then I would say yes. These three elements are just different aspects of the creative whole giving it its identifying characteristics. Like cells in a body with distinguished purposes. If however you can eliminate any one of them without effecting the identity of the whole then I would say yes, these are three separate things. As separate classes of things I’d say they are aspects of the one whole. Individually applied to things which can have the aspect of existence, I’d say they are three separate things.
If this were true by definition they are three separate things having differing qualities of class but retaining the same quality of existence.

1. the experiencer or the self which experiences
2. the effect which the experiencer experiences but which the experiencer has no experience of being the source of
3. The source of the effect which can be inferred through the experiencers own awareness as separate in class from the experiencer
   They are inseparable in their quality of existing but separable in that none of them as individual entities in existence are dependent upon the other to exist as a localized expression of existence. An experiencer may exist without any particular set of experiences applied to it. An effect may exist without any one particular experiencer to experience it. Likewise the source of that effect. It is important though that we define an experiencer as that which consciously is aware of having an experience.

 

[setarcos]

Will existence, by its very nature, be conscious?

In order to answer this one must be able to describe the nature of existence. Again semantics. I consider existence as a quality applied or lacking in a thing separate from the quality of consciousness. I consider consciousness and existence in the same class of qualities applied to things but which are in and of themselves not things having those qualities. I consider it meaningless to say consciousness has existence or existence is conscious verses for instance saying a thing that exists also has consciousness or in order for a thing to be conscious it must have the quality of existence as well. In other words the thing that these qualities are applied to and the thing itself in general are separate elements but uniquely applied cannot be separated from the thing whose identifying characteristics include them.

If there is no physical reality. Then is there any existence at all outside of my perception of it?

Two possibilities here. From our own or your frame of reference physical reality has been proven to exist. From your perspective what has been defined as physical reality has existent effects which follow physical laws which really do effect your experience of them and the source of these effects have already been shown to necessarily exist outside of your perception. So to you physical reality really exists and has real consequences the sources of which you cannot consciously control nor reassuringly identify. If you wish to redefine what physical means then I cant see how this would render the above any less apparent to you personally. You may never know ultimately their source but you will always perceive their effects the same way.
The second possibility is that physicality really exists as defined and is separate from and independent from relying in any way upon your perception in order to exist and make effects. In either case, something exists which you experience as physical reality. It matters not to the individual if the effects are sourced from ones own mind or sourced outside ones mind if the effects really effect the perception of the individual. In the one case in which the perception of the individual is all that’s real the effects to that perception are all the more real to that individual being the only source that perceives all that is real. In the other case the individual is perceiving effects that are real but whose source is external to the individuals perception of them. Either way the effects exist and consequently are real.

 

[setarcos]

Is my perception of existence a necessary attribute of existence? If so, then the three things that I can know to exist, are actually three aspects of the same thing. I am.

Again we must define and fine tune the meaning of our terms. If it can be shown that things can exist that cannot or are not perceived then no your perception of the thing is not a necessary attribute in order that existence be applied to that thing. Do we apply the attribute of existence only to that which IS perceived or can it be applied to that which CAN be perceived as well? This depends on what one would consider gives meaning to a thing. Is a thing that exists but can never be perceived meaningful? I can easily imagine some thing, a rock perhaps which is floating through space and has never been perceived by a conscious being…yet. So when does it exist? Only after someone sees it? Is it meaningful to apply attributes to existence? Is it meaningful to say that you perceive existence without perceiving the thing that exists?
I’m not so sure that these things are too far off topic here. We are dealing with existence, our perception of what exists or can exist and the source of existence effecting them. Is it even possible to have any kind of perceivable separation between things? Would it merely be a matter of perspective and not reality? Can we even perceive a lack of reality between things meaningfully?