• TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Finally, you say: if Nothing can be conceived by the mind, than it's something (something conceived by your mind), which is paradoxal. But to me to say that something can be conceived by the mind is to say that we have a concept of that thing. So we you ask me if nothing is conceivable, it's like if you are asking "Can we form a concept of Nothing?". The answer is yes. Does it mean that Nothing is Something? No. The concept of Nothing is something. Nothing is just nothing, as the concept say.L'Unico

    You seem to have missed my point. Nothing is not anything. If so, any question I pose of the form below:

    1. Is nothing x?

    must be answered with "not" or the grammatically correct "no" for nothing is not anything.

    My question then is,

    2. Is nothing that which can be conceived by the mind?

    Yes/No?

    If you say "yes" that means nothing is something, something the mind can conceive of but that's a contradiction.

    Ergo, the correct answer is "no". Nothing can't be conceived of by the mind but there's a definition of nothing which, if anything, implies that we have conceived of nothing. Paradox!
  • L'Unico
    17


    I've already answered your question. There is no paradox. You're just playing with language.

    "Is Nothing that which can be conceived by the mind?"

    This proposition is equivalent to:

    "Do we have a concept of Nothing?"

    Now, is this second form of the proposition paradoxal? Nl, it's not, as I've shown. But you insist in using the first proposition, even though should be clear now that the real subject of the proposition is not Nothing, but the concept of Nothing. Because If I had to take LITERALLY the first proposition, of course the answer would be no. But in that case it would be different from the second proposition. So, in this case, do we have a concept of Nothing? We do. But is Nothing that which can be conceived by the mind? No.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    "Is Nothing that which can be conceived by the mind?"

    This proposition is equivalent to:

    "Do we have a concept of Nothing?"
    L'Unico

    These are not propositions. Anyway, if the two questions are equivalent, the answer to the first should satisfy the answer to the second. Does it?
  • L'Unico
    17


    But if you take the first literally than it's not equivalent to the second.

    "Nothing is that which can be conceived by the mind" can be interpreted in different ways. It could mean that Nothing is the set of the things that can be conceived by the mind. But this cannot be what you meant. Or it could mean "Nothing can be conceived by the mind". This interpretation is not paradoxal, as I've shown. Because we are just talking about the concept of Nothing, not about Nothing itself (the only statements we can make about Nothing itself are negative statements). To be conceived by the mind is not a property of the Nothing. It is just an existential proposition of the form "There's an x and this x is the concept of Nothing". When we say that we conceive something, like a triangle, we just mean that we can form a concept of it.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    But if you take the first literally than it's not equivalent to the second.L'Unico

    And you say I'm playing word games. :smile: Have a good day.
  • L'Unico
    17


    Well, I'm sorry we didn't find an agreement. I hope the other readers will find out who is playing with words and who is not. : )
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Well, I'm sorry we didn't find an agreement. I hope the other readers will find out who is playing with words and who is not. : )L'Unico

    :up: :ok: Just so you know, I gained some valuable insights from our discussion. :up:
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