Nowhere: a nonexistent place (Webster’s)

Place: where something is (should be Webster’s)

That there is a place for nowhere in the dictionary means that it is somewhere...

Nowhere is, by definition, not anywhere, so nowhere can’t be anywhere, because nowhere has a place, and nowhere is nowhere...

What we have on our hands (nowhere) is a place which is no place. Paradox!

Pretty sure words like nowhere/nothing are meant to be used in conjunction with other words of substance or that they have implied wording when used depending on context.

Nothing [of value/interest]. Nowhere [to be found]. Etc.

I wonder if I can get out of having to pick out Christmas gifts with this thread? "I got you nothing? Just read this; nothing is quite impossible!"

X=X+1 can never be true — Book273

Of course it can. As a recursion statement in BASIC. I use stuff like this all the time.

Nothing is nothing of a paradox. :roll:

the question is wrong/illogical — EricH

Why is the question illogical/wrong? Let me rephrase the question using some examples:

1. x + 3 > 5. What is the solution set for the inequality 1? {3, 4, 5,...}

2. x + 1 = 2. What is the solution set for equation 2? {1}

3. x + 1 = x. What is the solution set for equation 3? { } = The empty set = Nothing. This barring infinity of course.

1. x + 3 > 5. What is the solution set for equation 1? {3, 4, 5,...} — TheMadFool

It's not an equation. I know, nit-picking, But I am idle at the moment and feeling peevish! Nothing to do.

What we have on our hands (nowhere) is a place which is no place. Paradox! — Todd Martin

Everybody knows
This is nowhere

Some questions just remind me of songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwQyX_osSLY

:up: Fixed the bug!

I want to ask you something. Are arithmetic operations (+ × ÷ -) defined over infinity?

Is it correct to say infinity + 1 = infinity?

Please, consider the way the word "nothing" is used in the english language. An empty room. There's nothing in that room. Is this a correct use of the word? Of course it is. Then you look at the definition: not ANY thing. But then it's impossible that there's nothing in the room. There's st least air. Maybe some snall insects. There's ligth coming from the window. There are so many THINGS in the empty room. Then why do we say that there's nothing in the room? Because it is a matter of quantifiers. When you say that there's nothing in the room, you are not quantifying on EVERYTHING, but only on things like furniture. It's irrelevant to you that in the room there's actually air, light, organisms and particles that you can't see, and space, because space is a thing too.

This was only an example, but it seems to me that this is the case every time that the word "nothing" is used in english (or in the italian word "nulla"). The quantifier is always on a finite dominion of things. Because how could you formulate a sentence with "Nothing" using a quantifier without boundaties which makes any sense? Nothing comes to my mind (hehe).

Having said that, the definition you provided is clearly problematic, because it can interpreted the way you did, even though no one use that interpretation in the english language, apart maybe for some philosopher who wants to play with words just for the fun of it.

So, it should be clear at least that we can use the word "nothing" without any problem.

Anyway, let's suppose we are one of those philosophers who like to have fun with words, and let's use your interpretation of that horrible and ambiguous definition. You say that at least we have a definition of "Nothing". You're rigth. If we have the definition, we have a concept. Ok. But the definition is talking about the REFERENCE of the concept. What does the word "Nothing" refers to? To not any thing. Which is like to say that "Nothing" does not have a reference. I don't understand why you are using the definition retroactively on itself. Take an easiest example:

Apple: the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin green or red skin and crisp flesh.

We have a definition of "apple". So we have a concept of "apple". The word is referring to the thing described by the definition. Does it mean that an apple is a concept? Well, no. This apple that I'm eating it's not a concept. It is not the concept of the apple. It's the apple.

For the same reason you should distinguish between the CONCEPT/definition of Nothing and the reference of Nothing. Nothing refers to not any thing. There's a concept, but there's no reference. There you go.

This was only an example, but it seems to me that this is the case every time that the word "nothing" is used in english (or in the italian word "nulla"). The quantifier is always on a finite dominion of things. Because how could you formulate a sentence with "Nothing" using a quantifier without boundaties which makes any sense? Nothing comes to my mind (hehe). — L'Unico

Right. As I said though, sometimes that quantifier is ambiguous.
For example, if I say "There's nothing to be afraid of", I am saying the set of things to be afraid of is empty. But this set is very open-ended in terms of what kind of things belong to it; in a particular context we might be implicitly referring to physical objects like spiders or fire say, but also abstract concepts like "heights". Or not implicitly referring to anything.

So, I agree with your point: "nothing" in English does not point to one singular concept. It's a special noun that means different things in different sentences. And it almost never refers to some discrete entity unto itself. This is the fundamental misconception of the OP and similar threads.

Yes, in the natural languages the quantifiers are almost always open-ended and have blurry domains. But you can get an idea of the domain in which the speaker in quantifying by looking at the context. For example, if the person speaking "There's nothing to be afraid of" is guiding you in an abandoned house, it goes without saying that what he means is "The set of things inside this house to be afraid of is empty, to the best of my knowledge". Even though it seems he is making a general statement, he is not. Maybe he thinks there's nothing yo be afraid of in that house, but he's afraid of MANY things that are not inside that house. Abstracting words from their usual context is one of the favorite game of many philosophers, unfortunately.

Anyway I don't see have a problem conceding that we can write down a definition of the word "nothing", and assume that the definition and the concept conveid by a word coincide. But as I said the problem is the confusion between the concept and the reference. Confusion between the semantic point of view and the ontological point of view (even though I unserstand that the boundaries is very thin and sometimes no so easy to see).

Agree completely.
It's a bit of a bugbear for me. For example, Matt Dillahunty, who I respect as much as any popular speaker on religion and philosophy, will say things like "There's no evidence that nothing can exist" and "Demonstrate me a nothing". These sentences at first glance seem meaningful because they are at least grammatically correct (well...the second is slightly wonky as "nothing" is generally a non-countable noun), but they're actually garbage.
If I were to translate the second sentence into Mandarin, I'd have to say something like "Don't demonstrate anything". Because Mandarin doesn't not have this contraction of "no" and "thing", so the apparent paradox is not there.

Yes, I was having trouble with that particular aspect of the problem - word and their referents. You mean to say that the word "nothing" refers to nothing but is itself not the thing it refers to. But I never said that the word "nothing" is itself nothing.

You gave an example: an apple and how it's the referent of the word "apple" and you're absolutely correct that the word "apple" ain't itself an apple, it's just a bunch of letters and sounds that point to (refer to) that particular variety of fruit we all know and love, apples.

However, the philosophical nothing is exactly how the definition I provided is understood. Nothing isn't anything and if that's true, it can't be referred to with a word for there's nothing to refer to.

Furthermore, nothing being what it is or rather what it's not, can't be a concept. If so, nothing can't be conceived of with our minds given our minds are concept machines. Yet, we've defined it and that's just another way of saying we've conceived it in the mind. That's a contradiction! A paradox.

Not, that the word "apple" is not the apple is another story. I wasn't talking about the word "apple", but about our CONCEPT of the apple. Is the concept/definition of apple an apple? No. The structure is something like this:

WORD "Apple" -> CONCEPT (which can be the definition or a mental representation) of the apple -> REFERENT (the apple rigth in front of you, or an apple at the market, or wathever).

WORD "Nothing" -> CONCEPT (in this case you only have the definition: not any thing) -> REFERENT (which does not exist, because of the definition).

There are other cases of concepts without referent. The root square of two, for example. You have a definition, but it doesn't refer to anything in particular. Or the concept of triangle. It has no referents because a drawn triangle is not a triangle, but just a symbol used to represent the pure concept of "triangle".

Now, a triangle is "a polygon formed by three edges", and this is a concept. But a polygon formed by three edges is not a concept. It's a polygon. There's a subtle difference. The concept is the definition, but the content of the definition is not a concept. Of course we can form a (negative) concept of Nothing, but that has nothing to do with the content of the definition (which actually doesn't exist).

So, returning to the apple, my concept of an apple is "the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin green or red skin and crisp flesh". But is a round fruit of a tree of the rose family a concept? Of course not. It's a fruit, not a concept.

CONCEPT of the apple — L'Unico

I'll get back to you. Thanks for the help!

Yes, that's an important point I'm grappling with at the moment. The concept is different to the thing the concept is about. For instance the concept human is not itself a human. — TheMadFool

Right. You can point to humans. Can you point to god or nothing? Try doing the same thing with the concepts of god and nothing. There are conceptions that are about the world and conceptions that are not (like imaginings). Which one is god and nothing - imaginary or real?

The concept of human stems from the actual experiece of the existence of humans. You probably would not have the concept of human without having first experienced humans.

God and nothing are never experienced. So the concept of god and nothing do not stem from the experience of the existence of such things. They are manifestations in the mind to account for what you do experience (in the case of god), or simply a misuse of language (in the case of nothing). As you have already shown in the other thread, nothing is not necessarily the opposite of something. As a matter of fact, you have yet to show that nothing is the opposite of anything, much less that it exists ontologically.

Yes, I meant the square root, sorry. It doesn't matter if you say "square root of 2" or "1.41...", the result is the same. There is no referent for abstract objects. You just have an analytic definition.

We have a concept of "Nothing", and Nothing is a concept that does not refere to anything. I don't understand what is the problem. I don't see any paradox.

1) We have a concept of "Nothing". True.

2) "Nothing" can't be a concept. True. It's a word. We have a concept related to this word, but the word per se is not the concept.

3) Nothing can't be a concept. This statement is ambiguos, cause it's not clear if you are using the word "Nothing" as a sostantive or as a negation. If you are just saying there's no thing that can be a concept, than you are clearly wrong. If you are saying that THE Nothing can't be a concept, of course it can't. And it is not. And there's no contradiction with 1).

4) Nothing refers to not anything, let alone a concept. Of course. Just like I'm saying. We have a concept related to the word "Nothing". This concept is a definition which express the meaning of the word "Nothing". That doesn't make neither "Nothing" nor Nothing a concept.

rephrase the question — TheMadFool

Maybe in your mind it is re-phrasing, but in fact it is an entirely different question.

Other than that, I yield to @L'Unico and @Mijin in this conversation. . .

I think I get it now. There's nothing and the concept of nothing. That nothing can't be a concept and it can't be according to its definition doesn't contradict the existence of the concept of nothing because for that to happen nothing should be the concept of nothing and that isn't the case just like an apple isn't the concept of an apple. That's your reasoning in a nutshell or as much of it I could decipher.

However...

Let's consider the matter of how we form concepts as according to you and as I've concurred there does exist a concept of nothing. How do we conceive of nothing in our minds? As the definition clearly shows, nothing is defined negatively as not this, not that, not that either, so and so forth. Nothing itself is not actually held in the mind like an apple is. The concept of apple evokes an image of an apple, perhaps even the way it stimulates our taste buds, and the concept of the square root of 2, at least for me, makes me think of the number 1.414... but try a similar thing with nothing and you can't do it. There's nothing a mind can do, try as it might in every way possible, to "hold in the mind" that which is nothing. Doesn't this mean, that nothing isn't, as we believed, a concept? If you disagree and are of the opinion that there's a concept of nothing then what must be acknowledged, at a minimum, is that the concept of nothing is vastly different from the concept of an apple.

Does this difference between nothing and an apple matter to our discussion? When do we define in the negative? When is it that we resort to such a tactic? This particular defining technique is usually employed when we're out of our depths which, unfortunately, happens more often than not if I'm anywhere near the ballpark. For instance I recall skimming through a Wikipedia article titled "Apophatic Theology" which, perhaps after acknowledging our near-complete ignorance of what we mean by "god", attempts to approach the divine by a method of denial, listing out as it were the qualities/properties that are not god. If there's any underlying similarity between nothing and god viewed thus, it must be that we don't know what either of them are.

This brings us back to what I've been trying to say, if not in its entirety at least in part, that nothing can't be a concept or if that doesn't go down well with you the concept of nothing is enormously different from, say, the concept of an apple. The former is approached through negation and the latter through affirmation. One could say though that that's the nature of the beast. Nothing is, at its heart, the negation/denial of everything there is and that's that!

What I'm getting at is, it seems, that nothing is the mother of all negations - not anything. So, the answer to a question that's framed thus, "Is nothing this/that/etc.?", should be "no". Hence, the answer to the question, "Is nothing that which can be conceived of in the mind?" should be "no". If one claims the answer is "yes" then nothing can't be not anything anymore for it's something that can be conceived of in the mind.

Thus, nothing can't be that which can be conceived of but that there's a definition of nothing implies that we've conceived of it. That's the paradox!

Nothing itself is not actually held in the mind like an apple is. — TheMadFool

An apple is not held in the mind either. The concept of an apple is held in the mind. You can hold an apple in your hand, but when you aren't holding an apple in your hand, are you necessarily holding nothing in your hand?

When you think of an apple, and then don't think of an apple, are you thinking of nothing when not thinking of an apple, or simply thinking about something else?

There are many concepts that evokes an image in the mind, a mental representation. As you said, this is the case for an apple. But try, for example, the christian notion of God. What do you "see", when you hear the word "God"? Of course someone could picture an old man in the skies, or a bright ligth, but we know that these are merely symbolic representation. An old man sitting on a cloud or a bright, ethereal ligth is in no way a TRUE representation of God. Think also about the root square of two. What do you see? The symbol "2" inside the "root" symbol? That is not what root square of two really is. The root square of two is a mathematical object, and only the definition is really able to convey the concept. I think it's the same for "Nothing". Even though, like in the case of God, I could still picture something while I hear this word (in fact sometimes I picture a black screen), I understand that these are merely symbolic representation, and that a black screen it's something, so it cannot be "nothing". But I still would separate the concept (the definition) and the mental representation (which may or may not be symbolic). Even though for some objects (like mathematical objects) I can't form mind images that are not symbolic, I know an objective definition, and that is the concept of those objects. Even if it is a negative definition, I still think that it's a legitimate concept.

Take the word "salumia". I just made it up. I will now give a definition of salumia: "Not a dog." Which should be understood as "If x is not a dog, than it is a salumia". You now have an operative concept of salumia. If now I say to you: "Is Lassie a salumia?". Your answer of course will be no. Lassie is a dog. Hence cannot be a salumia. Is Napoleon a salumia? Yes, Napoleone was a salumia. He wasn't a dog, so he is an element of all the salumia. I am a salumia too, and you too are. As you can see, it works witouth a problem. We have a word, we have a (negative) definition which provides an operative concept to distinguish a salumia from a "not a salumia" (which is now a definition of "dog"! Funny.)
And what do you picture when you now hear the word "salumia"? You may picture Napoleon, but you know that Napoleon is just A salumia, and only in a symbolic way could represent the concept that salumia convey. Only the definition is really true to the concept, because they are one and the same.

You could even define an apple with a negative concept. That would be quite difficult without specifying a finite set, so let's suppose we have a set of three elements: an apple, a dog and a cat. Let's call this set A.

Definition of apple: "for every x of A, if x is not a dog and x is not a cat, than x is an apple". Of course this is not a good definition of apple for everyday life, but I hope you get the idea. The idea is that there's nothing wrong in negative definitions. I think that Hegel had something interesting to say about these subject. And try maybe Berkeley and Hume for the "picture in the mind" part.

Finally, I think the definition you gave provide a legitimate concept of "Nothing". It is a negative concept, without a referent that you can picture in the mind, yes, but it's not a big deal. It can be conceived in the mind, but only as an operative negative definition. Not in other ways. Berkeley and Hume failed to understand this when talking about abstract objects, for example.

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.

We have a definition of "apple". So we have a concept of "apple". The word is referring to the thing described by the definition. Does it mean that an apple is a concept? Well, no. This apple that I'm eating it's not a concept. It is not the concept of the apple. It's the apple. — L'Unico

I’m co fused about the use of the term ‘referent’.
How do we keep the referent separate from the concept? That is to say , don’t we have to assume that the concept represents the referent? Don’t we have to believe that there are apples ‘out there’ independent of our construal of them? But if language enacts
rather than represents, then the referent is itself
only a concept.

The concept is the meaning of a word. Now, with abstract objects it's complicated and it really depends on a lot of things, but in the case of real objects like an apple, it seems straightforward to me. I'm not sure I understand your point.



What do you mean by "the language enacts rather than represents"? And why is the referent itself a concept? Of course we have a concept of "reference" and "referent", but a specific referent it's not a concept.

I reject the notion that it makes sense to talk about a ‘real’ object. There are only construals of objects. I like Husserl’s definition of a ‘real’ spatial object. Forgive the length.

One of the key aspects of Husserl's approach was his explanation of the origin of spatial objects. Rather than defining an object in terms of its self-subsistence over time with its properties and attributes, he believed such entities to be , not fictions, but idealities. That is to say, what we , in a naive naturalist attitude, point to as this 'real' table in front of us, is the constantly changing product of a process of progressive constitution in consciousness. The real object is in fact an idealization.This process begins at the most primordial level with what he called primal impressions, which we can imagine as the simplest whiffs of sensation(these he calls actual, rather than real. Actual impressions only appear once in time as what they are. When we see something like a table, all that we actually perceive in front of us is an impoverished, contingent partial sense experience.

We fill in the rest of experience in two ways. Al experience implies a temporal structure of retention, primal impression and protention. Each moment presents us with a new sensation, th4 retained memory of the just preceding sensation and anticipation of what is to come. We retain the memory of previous experiences with the 'same' object and those memories become fused with the current aspect of it. A the same time, we protend forward, anticipating aspects of the object that are not yet there for us, based on prior experience with it. For example, we only see the front of the table, but anticipate as an empty horizon, its sides, and this empty anticipation joins with the current view and the memory of previous views to form a complex fused totality. Perception constantly is motivated , that is tends toward toward the fulfillment of the experience of the object as integrated singularity, as this same' table'.

Thus , through a process of progress adumbration of partial views, we constitute what we call and object. It must be added that not just the sens of sight, but all other sense modalities can come into play in constituting the object. And most importantly, there is no experience of an object without kineshthetic sensation of our voluntary movement in relation to the thing seen. Intrinsic to what the object means as object is our knowing how its appearance will change when we move our head in a certain way, or our eyes , or when we touch it. The object is what it is for us in relation to the way we know we can change its appearance relative to our interactions with it.

In sum, what the naive realist calls an external object of perception, Husserl treats as a relative product of constant but regilated changing correlated modes of givenness and adumbrations composed of retentions and protentions. The 'thing' is a tentative , evolving achievement of memory , anticipation and voluntary movement.

From this vantage, attempting to explain this constituting process in psychophysiological terms by reducing it to the language of naive realism is an attempt to explain the constituting on the basis of the constituted. The synthetic structure of temporal constitution is irreducible to 'physical' terms. On the contrary, it is the 'physicai' that rests on a complex constitutive subjective process that is ignored in the naive attitude.

But this is in no way in contrast with the simple semiotic theory that I used. Even if the real object is the result of a complex constitutive subjective process, and even if we are subjective idealist and we think there are no apples out there, the concept of "reference" still make sense and is extremely useful. The process described by Husserl occur in a very pre-cognitive way. It's a fast, almost subconscious level. If I take an apple and I present it to you, can you recognize in your mind all these steps that Husserl describes? I can't. It just appears as an apple, almost in an instant. Then of course I may provide a very sophisticated phenomenological theory about this appearance, or I may be an idealist and say that there's no external world in which the apple exist. But there is still a HUGE difference between the apple in front of me and my concept of the apple. The concept it's just a definition. A collection of propositions. The apple is a collection of impressions. It's not fair to call the apple a "concept". Even if it is subjectively constructed, the process, as I've said, is so fast and so... still (the apple won't go away, even If I want it to go away) that it's a completely different experience. I understand that "real" objects can create some misunderstanding, but that semiotic theory does in no way rest on the assumption that there are objects outside my mind or something like that.

Even if the object is not present and we say there is a referent, it can work in an idealist framework. Let's suppose there is an apple on the table, and the table is in another room. I'm not perceiving the other room, so it seems like that, being that apple in the other room my referent, I'm assuming the apple exist in the other room, and so outside of my mind. But it is not necessary. I can use a mental representation as a proxy for the referent, and say: "If I will go in the other room, I will perceive the apple".

there is still a HUGE difference between the apple in front of me and my concept of the apple. The concept it's just a definition. A collection of propositions. The apple is a collection of impressions. — L'Unico

So let’s say I discover a fruit I’ve never seen before.If i try to label it to my self or someone else I may say that it looks a little like an apple but it’s not really. It s this thing with a mix of features that I can describe separately. But can I describe it with a single label like ‘apple’? Well, yes, preverbally I already know that it is a ‘this mishmash’. I. fact the preverbal sense of it is already language, just less articulate than the verbal articulation. I am thus already labeling it for my purposes this. new mishmash. Now, if I try and share my new label , it will only at first be understandood by my companion who has shared in this new discovery. Together, we have shared in our experiencing of the mishmash as this particular
label.

Thus makes me wonder. Can we separate the word mishmash as it is used by the twoof us from the ‘referent’? Any time I think about the referent , am I not thinking about it as a ‘this’ ? If we say language refers to..
what is there in our experiencethat does NOT refer to?

However, take a moment to consider what Nothing is defined as - it can't be anything and that means it can't also be a concept. — TheMadFool

You are conflating use and mention. From a post I made in your other thread:

"Nothing is nothing, absolutely nothing. <Nothing> is the concept of nothing. It is a real concept, not imaginary. The idea of nothing, as idea, is indeed something, but it is the idea of the opposite of something: namely nothing."

Yes, you can separate the referent from the word and from the concept. The word is wathever word you choose to use. The concept is the description of this new fruit that you want to use. Of course there are many descriptions available to you. You may just describe the external feature of the fruit, but If you are a scientist maybe you will study the DNA of the fruit and use this information for your categorization, hence your concept of the fruit. What about the referent? The referent is just the thing you are seeing with your eyes. In the case of new fruit, it's just a "this", but the experience of the fruit doesn't change. I may be an indios of the XVI century and see for the first time in my life, on the sea, a huge spanish ship. I don't know anything about Spain or ships. It doesn't even resemble anything I know. I'll just call it "that thing". And then I'll describe it to others. Maybe the others will call it "the thing that he saw this morning". They will use my description as a concept and try to imagine the "thing". As a referent they can only use the image formed in their imagination, but I can use my memory of this morning. That thing that I saw this morning, that is what I'm referring to.

Your account t seems to assume one can separate thinking from language and expression, but I follow Merleau-Ponty and others in arguing that all thinking is expressive , that there is no
such thing as non-languaged thought.

To perceive a Spanish ship is already expressive language in that it involves a linking together a rich fabric of contexts into a hypothesis of what one is seeing. There is the filling in of detail from one’s previous experience to add to the simple
perceptual information from the ship , and this embellishment is already language. There is the connecting of this with anticipations and also perhaps an awareness of how the experiencing of the ship makes one feel in one’s body. The feedback from the body is an additional source of expressive language
that becomes a part of the context of the sense
of the ship. When one articulates this contextual complex further by forming it as a word, one has simply further enriched a process of languaging that was already in progress. If the word was whatever I chose to use , then so were my bodily reactions and the way I perceptually filled in for the simple perceptual information I began with. All these phases in the experience are both mutually referential and expressive, and at no
point could we identify a thought that preceded this process. Certainly the description of the ship , as concept, is not the identical concept when the words used in the description change , or the language of the description changes from English to French.

As a referent they can only use the image formed in their imagination, but I can use my memory of this morning. That thing that I saw this morning, that is what I'm referring to. — L'Unico

the word I use ( that ship) refers to the context of meaning that it embellished and enriched , but in understanding the word I am understanding a richer experience of meaning than existed before I came up with the word. The word is not just tacked onto the experience any more than my bodily reaction to it was just tacked on, or my perceptual filling was just tacked on. Each of these are enrichments in the very meaning of the experience.

when a poet struggles to find the right word, and he spent days working on it, do you think that that right word leaves the thought unchanged? Does the new word simply refer to that unchanged thought?

Or does that right word that the poet finds Transform and enrich the previous thought?