The claim that "nothing comes from nothing" is a positive claim which must be backed up

[MrSnaith]

Let’s suppose that PN2 is coherrent. Since PN2 is the absence of any forms of reality, it can not describe any possibly real state, including one in which there are no things. In other words, even if PN2 is coherrent, it can’t be real! and the answer to the question “why is there something rather than PN2?” is “because PN2 can’texist as a state of affairs, almost by definition!”

PN1 is somewhere between empty space and PN2. PN1 is simply the state of affairs which lacks all things (including gravitational fields and quantum energy), but is itself a possibly real state, though there are no examples of it in our universe.

Your error is the supposition that PN2 is a state. Go back and look at how it’s defined. It isn’t defined as a state, it’s defined as an absence. A state is a configuration of existence. Since nothingness does not exist, strictly speaking, it is therefore not a state, even if you wanted to describe it as a state of absence. Why? Because a state of absence would be a state of absence of some thing. But if our starting point is nothingness, then there is no absence of some thing, since no thing existed prior to the absence. Thus, it is not a state.

PN2 is not definable because to say anything “is” anything is to describe a state of being; that’s just the language we have. The best we could say is something like: “PN2 is not.”

Frankly, though, I don’t really see a difference between PN1 and PN2.

PN1 (per N0X3x): A nothingness which lacks even empty space.
PN2 (per JJBannan): The absence of reality with no existential value.

If there is a difference, please explain.

 

[MrSnaith]

In order to properly answer the OP question, three things need to be defined.

1. Nothing.
2. Existence.
3. The process whereby something enters into existence.

Unless we understand what these are, we cannot answer the question.

 

[N0X3x]

Your error is the supposition that PN2 is a state. Go back and look at how it’s defined. It isn’t defined as a state, it’s defined as an absence. A state is a configuration of existence. Since nothingness does not exist, strictly speaking, it is therefore not a state, even if you wanted to describe it as a state of absence. Why? Because a state of absence would be a state of absence of some thing. But if our starting point is nothingness, then there is no absence of some thing, since no thing existed prior to the absence. Thus, it is not a state.

As far as I know, there have never been any dragons(as popularly conceived) in existence anywhere in the universe. Yet even though dragons have never existed, I can still say that we live in a state of absence of dragons. Likewise, nothingness is a state of absence of all things. Whether or not things existed prior to the nothingness has absolutely no bearing on whether or not we refer to nothingness as a state.

PN2 is not definable because to say anything “is” anything is to describe a state of being; that’s just the language we have. The best we could say is something like: “PN2 is not.”

Frankly, though, I don’t really see a difference between PN1 and PN2.

PN1 (per N0X3x): A nothingness which lacks even empty space.
PN2 (per JJBannan): The absence of reality with no existential value.

If there is a difference, please explain.

Whether or not there is a difference depends on whether PN2 can be defined as a non-real non-state, as John seems to want to do.

 

[N0X3x]

I think some of the confusion surrounding this issue concerns how we define “state.”

If no things exist, would that be a state or a non-state?

I say it is a state. It would be a real state of affairs if there were no things, as in PN1.

a non-state would have to be both not something and not nothing at the same time, which is logically impossible, or at least can not apply to any possibly real state.

 

[N0X3x]

In order to properly answer the OP question, three things need to be defined.

1. Nothing.
2. Existence.
3. The process whereby something enters into existence.

Unless we understand what these are, we cannot answer the question.

We’re currently working on one. two seems pretty self-explanatory, but I’ve been wrong before.

I think three is where we’ll have the most contention.

 

[MrSnaith]

As far as I know, there have never been any dragons(as popularly conceived) in existence anywhere in the universe. Yet even though dragons have never existed, I can still say that we live in a state of absence of dragons. Likewise, nothingness is a state of absence of all things. Whether or not things existed prior to the nothingness has absolutely no bearing on whether or not we refer to nothingness as a state.

Whether or not there is a difference depends on whether PN2 can be defined as a non-real non-state, as John seems to want to do.

This is where Aquinas makes a lot of sense when speaking of potency and act. I would suggest that the difference between PN1 and PN2 is that PN1 might be the absence of all act, but the presence of all potency, while PN2 is the absence of both all act and all potency.

Thus, your position that nothingness is the state of absence of all things would make sense, as it would be the state of pure potency. But potency has existential value, which is why PN1 may be said to be a state. Whereas, PN2 has no existential value, and thus may not be said to be a state.

 

[balto]

That statement I made is pretty much the topic of this thread…

No, that’s not what I mean. I mean it’s not going to get us anywhere to argue over who should prove what to whom. I think the discussion we’ve been having about what nothingness, prime matter, and pure act are is more fruitful and can be more enlightening to you, me, and anyone reading. I trust that you concur?

There may be nothing to know about it, but there would be an objective truth about it, namely: that it is a brute fact. That’s something, at least.

I am suspecting that we are understanding brute fact differently. When you talk about brute facts, are you simply referring to some reality that does not require appeal to a further reality for its explanation? If so, that does not rule out a self-explanatory reality. For instance, it would be foolish to ask why triangles are triangular. Their triangularity is self-explanatory. The question is whether there is some reality whose existence is self-explanatory and classical theists claim there is: God. You seem to agree, but claim that it is “nothingness” as you define it (not as we define it). In the next post I’ll address whether your understanding of nothingness is fit for this role.

A brute fact is strictly speaking unintelligible. If Y is caused by X and you are claiming that X is a brute fact, you are claiming it is somewhat intelligible since you think that X at least has the property of being a Y-causing thing, which makes X a more viable candidate for the cause of Y than some other thing. But that seems to presuppose the principle of proportionate causality: that an effect can only be produced by something with sufficient power to produce the effect, which seems to be part of PSR. If X is not self-explanatory as regards its existence, then it seems you’d have to appeal to something that has the power to explain X’s existence. Deny this and you may as well deny that Y needs a cause as well. To say that Y really is explained by X is to presuppose PSR.

Here are some useful articles that give a more in-depth treatment of the matter if you are interested (reading the comments is also useful):
edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-exchange-with-keith-parsons-part-iv.html
edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/can-you-explain-something-by-appealing.html

Suppose my star were made from undetectable stardust fairies. I can definitely imagine this, and there would be a metaphysical fact that the star was made from undetectable stardust fairies, even though there would be no epistemological method to discern that this fact were true. When I imagine something, I can imagine the metaphysical facts in the imaginary world, without worrying about the epistemological method for knowing those facts. They are known “directly” so to speak, the same way we know that we exist through cogito, ergo sum. I can imagine a causeless star the same way that I can imagine undetectable stardust fairies.

Sure, this is valid.

To take this example further, suppose someone claimed that a star caused by undetectable stardust fairies was logically impossible (I hope you agree that it is NOT), insisted that the burden of proof was on the other person to show otherwise, and then shot down their examples of imaginary stardust fairies creating stars by claiming that because stardust fairies could never be shown to be the cause, even in an imaginary setting, they couldn’t be accepted as evidence that stardust fairies are logically possible.

That’s essentially what you’ve done, except for causeless events rather than events with undetectable causes.

That’s still not an apt analogy because it is addressing the epistemological concerns and not the metaphysical ones. The objection in your hypothetical scenario denies that fairies could shown to be the cause, which is an epistemological concern since both parties still seem to be in agreement that the event is caused. You are not imagining a metaphysical fact by trying to conceive of uncaused events but trying to imagine the absence of any metaphysical facts regarding the matter.

 

[balto]

It is a metaphysical brute fact because the note was not written by the future self, it was given to him by his future self.

I’m not seeing how this follows. It was written by the future self since that’s what we said happened. If you’re trying to get at the fact that in the present the future self is non-existent, then we have a contradictory scenario where the future self both does and does not exist in the present moment, which is why I said “assuming time travel is possible.”

They can! I never said they couldn’t. If a person has reason to believe that the universe has a cause, by all means, present it and I’ll take the reasoning into consideration. All a PSR denier needs to say is that we don’t know whether as yet unexplained phenomena (including the origins of the universe) have explanations or not. If we find a good explanation, there is an explanation. PSR doesn’t even apply to phenomena we already have explanations for! It only applies to things we don’t have explanations for yet.

But this is the problem. If you think it possible that something may be unexplainable then I’m not sure how you can discriminate between good and bad explanations if you are seriously entertaining the possibility that an explanation is not needed at all. Do you have to offer an explanation why no explanation is needed, over accepting a silly or bad explanation that is possibly true, re. the fairy hypothesis mentioned earlier in opposition to an uncaused event?

The universe is unexplained. Other phenomena are not.

But how do you know other phenomena are explained and that they are not all accidental brute facts? Because you have reasons to believe so? But that presupposes PSR.

I think we are talking about the same thing, but we disagree on whether nothingness can remain nothingness. nothingness is only one possible state, and can (perhaps even must) spontaneously change into another state that contains something. I guess I would say that, from my understanding of the theory, nothingness has the potential to become anything, and doesn’t need anything in order to move these potencies to actuality. On the contrary, there needs to be something to restrict these potencies from becoming actuality. We live in a universe where that restriction is in place, and thus we observe cause and effect.

Okay, Mr. Snaith brought this up already. Classical thinkers accepted this reality, but it is not what they understood nothing to be. This is prime matter or pure potency. Prime matter does have the potency to become anything that is logically possible. But when you say that prime matter can actualize itself, you seem to be speaking nonsense since it order for prime matter to actualize itself, it would have to already be actual in some way, in which case it is not pure potency but some substantial union of actual form with matter. We are asking where any of the actuality ultimately comes from. It’s coming from the other end of the spectrum, pure actuality, which is God. So speaking of gravity restricting prime matter from doing things is not accurate, since prime matter doesn’t do anything at all since it is not actual in any way. It’s rather the case that gravity is already actual in some way and only has the power to bring certain things into existence from prime matter given what gravity is.

 

[N0X3x]

Balto, I won’t have time to reply to you til Sunday. Just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten.

 

[N0X3x]

crud. I’m not going to have time to post a reply today. Sorry. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post something after finals are done.

 

[balto]

crud. I’m not going to have time to post a reply today. Sorry. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post something after finals are done.

It’s okay, take your time . I know how stressful finals are and those are more important right now anyway.

 

[Ignatius]

So, can the belief that something comes from nothing be defended? If so, how?

One way for them to defend that contention that something can come from nothing is to cite an example of something that came from nothing.