Define God Thread

[Kharakov]

That would mean that nothing can only happen where there is no reality.

How is that a useful thought?

Nothing doesn't actually happen: it doesn't exist, except as a concept. Like 0 oranges.

Now, if you say "nothing, the concept existed, and from this Tabula Rosa state of mind arose all things, except Winston Churchill, who arose due to an Iron Maiden song that I heard as a kid."

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sounds like you're contradicting yourself.

It's perfectly logical because nothing really means nothing. And in this case, nothing means there's no prior constraints on how things are allowed to come into existence. So, no constraints, therefore spontaneous appearance is perfectly logical.

vs

My notion of nothingness is not that of any state. 'Nothing' really means no thing. So no state, no anything. So spontaneous events could not occur there because there's no there to begin with.

First you said nothingness is compatible with spontaneous event, but now you're saying it's not.

That's not quite what I said.

To help you out here, let me rephrase what you said to make it good:

First, the idea of nothingness is compatible with the idea of spontaneous appearance of something.

Second, it's meaningless to talk of the spontaneous appearance of something taking place within, or being caused by, nothingness.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If nothing can mean anything, then sure. But your nothing is a state of something where spontaneous events can occur.

No.

Yours perhaps, not mine.

My notion of nothingness is not that of any state. 'Nothing' really means no thing. So no state, no anything. So spontaneous events could not occur there because there's no there to begin with.

Quite simple really.
EB

That would mean that nothing can only happen where there is no reality.

How is that a useful thought?

Again, that's not what I said.

I went out for shopping yesterday and nothing bad happened.

See? Nothing is not quite the same as nothingness.

I wasn't talking about nothing (I hope I wasn't). I was talking about nothingness.

Nothingness is incompatible with anything that exists. Nothingness would certainly be real but it's not something you could say that it exists because it's not something to begin with.

See?

How useful is the idea of nothingness? Well, how do you measure usefulness objectively? One way would be to count how many times people use the word. If so, the idea of nothingness is not very useful. But it's okay because it means we don't spend too much time talking about it.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If nothing can mean anything, then sure. But your nothing is a state of something where spontaneous events can occur.

No.

Yours perhaps, not mine.

My notion of nothingness is not that of any state. 'Nothing' really means no thing. So no state, no anything. So spontaneous events could not occur there because there's no there to begin with.

Quite simple really.
EB

What a beautiful description of nothing. Something that doesn't exist.

Some time ago, fast discussed the difference between 'something' and 'some thing'. Similarly, there's a difference between 'nothing' and 'no thing'. So we could say 'nothingness is something', but not 'nothingness is some thing'. And we could also say, 'there's nothing here', but not 'there's no thing here' since here itself is a thing.
EB