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Does NOTHING really exist? Thomas Baldwin has constructed a detailed formal argument to show that there is a possible world where nothing exists, and thus he makes use of a different conception of worlds. It is based upon the idea that it is always possible to "subtract" a concrete object from a given possible world and thus to find another possible world, accessible to the first, which has exactly one less object in it. He begins with the premises that a world with a finite number of concrete objects is possible, that each of these objects might not exist, and that their nonexistence does not entail the existence of anything else. He then shows that there is an iterative procedure for "subtracting" objects from worlds, and the end result, given a finite number of objects, is that there is a possible world where all concrete objects have been subtracted. This is the empty world. The subtraction argument, as Baldwin calls it, probably represents the most natural way of thinking about the possibility that nothing exists. As in this Thread....

Oh great! Now you got me thinking about the Schroedinger's Cat, and that one always gives me a headache. It's in the box, alive, no it isn't, it is, not, is...

Connie whatever you do just don't peek into the box or you will disrupt the experiment. Hey Tom - so if we continue to remove one concrete objetc til we get to the last one, once that last object is removed nothing exist, but since it is nothing how do we get there or for that matter how do we know we are there, since there is nothing there to mark that we are there. Or is it truly nothing since we would be there and we are somthing so it truly wouldn't be nothing. Jeff

The Cat is either alive or dead it cannot be both, if it has been poisoned then it is dead whether you look at it or not....

Kaelonj My position is very different from that of many, I contend that the situation where nothing exists is impossible, but for a different reason. Perhaps a combinatorial theory of possibility which limits possible worlds to those constructed from given elements (actual individuals, properties and relations). Clearly the empty world is not so constructed, because it has no structure at all. Hence there is no empty world, and the proposition that something exists is a necessary truth. Having said that....what really happened to the cat?

To answer your question on the cat - I think it was shipped to Cucamonga (at last that's what I recall in a Tom and Jerry episode).

I'm lost again....

Tom, if you read between the lines it becomes much clearer!

Originally posted by kaelonj Connie whatever you do just don't peek into the box or you will disrupt the experiment. Jeff I'm the 'outside the box' kind of a cat, I mean gal. ;)

Originally posted by mattson Let this be your lesson, about trying to bring something into a discussion about nothing. That would violate conservation of energy. Well, and ex-boyfriend of mine used to harp on me how intelectualizing about 'nothing' is such a pointles waste of time. I often enjoy those discussion. Now instead of a boyfriend, he is nothing... as in "A woman without her man is nothing" How's that for coming in full circle about nothing ;) Today, I feel like a Scrodingers cat... If you can imagine that.