Hmm. :chin: I think a phrase like "up needless heterodox for vagaries" is a meaningless sentence. There's nothing to take out of it. In your "red the is apple", the phrase is intended to convey that the apple is red, so I don't see why as a phrase it's meaningless.

Also remember Chomsky's example of "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously." is semantically meaningless, but it has proper grammar. So the issue might go a bit deeper.

I think that argument can go on forever, since the other party will retort that nothing existing was far more likely since “nothing” was much simpler than the actual universe, in the same as a universe just like ours, but were a star didn't exist, was more likely to exist than the actual universe. — Amalac

Yes, that's correct. Perhaps you may want to ignore this as I'm doing what you point out. The thing is, we are here. And it doesn't make any sense in any way to believe that something came from nothing.

Nothing might not be simpler than potential, which is to say, nature wouldn't allow for nothing. There's always some quantum field or something even deeper we don't know about, that fills nature.

But point taken.

So he just made an obvious mistake? I'm somewhat skeptical of that, but it's possible nonetheless.

The statement “nothing exists” is either false or meaningless (neither true nor false), but obviously not both false and meaningless. — Amalac

Not really. A meaningless statement, say Q, is neither true nor false.

In classical logic if a proposition P is neither true nor false then P & ~P (contradiction).

In other words Q is equivalent to a contradiction (P & ~P)

I think this'll help. For any sentence R
1. R (R is true)
2. ~R (R is false)
3. Neither R is true nor R is false. This means,
3a. R is meaningless
3b. R & ~R (contradiction)

In other words, if I say R is neither true nor false, it's a contradiction (false) or R is meaningless i.e. contradiction (false) = meaningless.

What's happening here is that if someone tells me R is neither true nor false, either there's a contradiction (R & ~R) which is false or R is meaningless but I can't tell which it is i.e. they're same. The identity of indiscernibles.

Furthermore, in classical logic, the middle in the law of the excluded middle (a proposition is either true or false) is a contradiction (both true and false = neither true nor false). If R is meaningless, R is neither true nor false i.e. it's the middle. That means a contradiction (false) = R being meaningless.

In classical logic if a proposition P is neither true nor false then P & ~P (contradiction). — TheMadFool

Wrong, check the truth table for contradictions: contradictions are always false.

Plus a statement such as “the gostak distims the doshes” is just senseless, it does not even make sense so as to be self-contradictory.

In your "red the is apple", the phrase is intended to convey that the apple is red, so I don't see why as a phrase it's meaningless. — Manuel

I mean that it's meaningless because it's poorly formed, in order to understand it you have to rearrange the words, and then you are no longer referring to that statement, because you don't have that poorly formed statement in mind, instead you are referring to the statement “the apple is red”.

Also remember Chomsky's example of "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously." is semantically meaningless, but it has proper grammar. So the issue might go a bit deeper. — Manuel

That's correct, proper grammar does not guarantee meaning. I don't think I claimed otherwise.

Wrong, check the truth table for contradictions: contradictions are always false.

Plus a statement such as “the gostak distims the doshes” is just senseless, it does not even make sense so as to be self-contradictory. — Amalac

I wasn't clear enough. Let me try again.

Q is a unintelligible sentence i.e. Q is neither true nor false. That's that.

P is a proposition. Say P is neither true nor false. ~P & ~~P = ~P & P = P & ~P (false)

IF Q is taken as a proposition P then Q = P & ~P. P & ~P is false (it's a contradiction). Ergo, Q must be false.

Q is a unintelligible sentence i.e. Q is neither true nor false. That's that. — TheMadFool

So if Q is nonsense, it is not false.

P is a proposition. Say P is neither true nor false. ~P & ~~P = ~P & P = P & ~P (false) — TheMadFool

If P is nonsense, then so is not P. The conjunction of P and not P is false if either P is false or not P is false. But neither are false, so the conjunction is also meaningless.

Ergo, Q must be false. — TheMadFool

This conclusion contradicts one of your premises, Q can't be false and also not true and not false at the same time.

I'd much rather not classify it as analytic, I have to agree. I'm trying to look at it in a fairly plain way, at first -- I have lotsa sympathy with the idea that existence isn't a predicate, but to take the sentence more plainly I'd say that it is meaningful. Analytic? I'm not so sure about that because of the two ways you could take "nothing exists" --

"Nothing exists" could mean there is not a single thing which exists at all in the entirety of the universe. In this sense it seems kinda contradictory, again in a plain approach kind of way, since clearly the sentence exists, so the very statement becomes a performative contradiction since the statement itself exists. (A philosophers answer if there ever was one :D )

But we could also say "Nothing exists" in the sense that we mean when referring to atomic structure -- that the majority of atomic structure is composed of nothing, a space between entities in relation with one another. Or, even more plainly, we could say there is nothing in the cupboard, open the cupboard, and indeed see that there is nothing in the cupboard, so we could conclude -- on the basis of this -- that at least in one place in the world nothing exists.

In this second sense I'd say the sentence is not analytic at all, but synthetic.

Q is a unintelligible sentence i.e. Q is neither true nor false. That's that.
— TheMadFool

So if Q is nonsense, it is not false. — Amalac

Agreed.

P is a proposition. Say P is neither true nor false. ~P & ~~P = ~P & P = P & ~P (false)
— TheMadFool

If P is nonsense, then so is not P. The conjunction of P and not P is false if either P is false or not P is false. But neither are false, so the conjunction is also meaningless. — Amalac

Not exactly. I made it clear that P is a proposition. ~P too is a proposition.

P & ~P is a contradiction.

Ergo, Q must be false.
— TheMadFool

This conclusion contradicts one of your premises, Q can't be false and also not true and not false at the same time. — Amalac

Yes, you're right Q can neither be true nor false.

However,

assume Q is a proposition.

Then, Q is neither true nor false = ~(Q v ~Q) = Q & ~Q = a contradiction (false).

Q is neither true nor false implies:

1.Q is not a proposition (Q is meaningless).

OR

2. Q is a proposition but Q & ~Q (contradiction, false).

So, if I tell you there's a sentence Q which is neither true nor false, you won't be able to tell whether Q is not a proposition (Q is meaningless) OR Q is a proposition such that Q & ~Q.

In other words Q (meaningless) is indistinguishable from Q is a proposition such that Q & ~Q which is to say,

Q (meaningless) = Q is a proposition AND Q & ~Q.

Q is a proposition is true.
Q & ~Q is false.
Ergo,
(Q is a proposition AND Q & ~Q) is false.

Q (meaningless) must therefore also be false.