Absence and Nothing
Consider:
Thing
Concept
Presence
Absence
Operations:
PT
PC
I promised to look at these terms again, in order that I might clarify them.
Let me note the Operations:
PT means Presence of Thing
PC means Presence of Concept
Think about these and Nothing.
Since Yesterday:
In reflecting upon these terms, I realized that Absence is not synonymous with Nothing. "Absence" retains a residue of nostalgia for the Presence it has lost. "Nothing" retains none of that.
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:11 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Dr. Vallicella wrote something about the ontological status of holes. Let me find the quote. Here:
Consider a particular hole H in a piece of Swiss cheese. H is not nothing. It has properties. It has, for example, a shape: it is circular. The circular hole has a definite radius, diameter, and circumference. It has a definite area equal to pi times the radius squared: A=πr^2 If the piece of cheese is 1/16th of an inch thick, then the hole is a disk having a definite volume. H has a definite location relative to the edges of the piece of cheese and relative to the other holes. H has causal properties: it affects the texture and flexibility of the cheese and its resistance to the tooth. H is perceivable by the senses: you can see it and touch it. You touch a hole by putting a finger or other appendage into it and experiencing no resistance.
Now if anything has properties, then it exists. H has properties; so H exists.
The foregoing was set-up for the question. H exists and the piece of cheese exists. Do they exist in the same way? Not by my lights.
Down the rabbit hole we go.
Uh-o . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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