Yes, of course.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:<<< The very definition of “nothing”, at least one meaningful to us, does not and indeed I would contend, CANNOT exist. From my again Christian philosophical perspective, the fact of this invincible resistance to definition does not in itself preclude existence, [/quote]Wait…you don’t believe that nothing can exist or does exist…this is huge Tirib…answer wisely. ;)[/quote]Keep tryin Christopher. =] I am doubting that there can be such a “thing” as "NOthing" and even then allow for such a “thing” that may simply be undefinable and incomprehensible to us as finite derivative creatures.
[/quote]So, you don’t believe a vacuum can exist?[/quote]Why should I?
[/quote]To deny the possibility of a vacuum was to deny God’s creative power, for nothing was impossible to an omnipotent God. >>>[/quote] That’s a postulation. Not a reason. There is to us a meaninglessly vaaaaast array of “things” that are possible to God but have never been brought about by Him. If by “vacuum” you mean actual nothingness then I’ve already said it’s possible, but will most likely never be to us an observable phenomena like matter. Matter which it may be argued in it’s most basic “essence” isn’t even observable. [quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< Thomas E. Woods. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (pp. 89-90). Kindle Edition. >>>[/quote] You have NO idea of the noose your head would have been in if I could ever have gotten Sloth to pursue the line of dialog that famously was our undoing. [quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< And, you’d be agreeing with Aristotle. ;)[/quote]There’s plenty of things I agree with Aristotle on Chris. Like 2+2=4. We’re both children of Adam and bearers of the image of our God after all. Aristotle’s (and Aquinas’s) fatal error is at the level of epistemology. The how and why. Not the what and whether.[quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< A vacuum being able to exist, and a vacuum existing are two different things. Just FYI.[/quote]That’s what I said in the first place.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:<<< The very definition of “nothing”, at least one meaningful to us, does not and indeed I would contend, CANNOT exist. From my again Christian philosophical perspective, the fact of this invincible resistance to definition does not in itself preclude existence, [/quote]Wait…you don’t believe that nothing can exist or does exist…this is huge Tirib…answer wisely. ;)[/quote]Keep tryin Christopher. =] I am doubting that there can be such a “thing” as "NOthing" and even then allow for such a “thing” that may simply be undefinable and incomprehensible to us as finite derivative creatures.
[/quote]So, you don’t believe a vacuum can exist?[/quote]Why should I?
[/quote]
Vacuums do indeed exist. Vacuums are not a lack of existence, they occupy space and time. And a vacuum is not necessarily empty, in fact there is no evidence of purely empty space.
Every time we look, there’s always something there.
Though perhaps inevitable, I would like to limit the religiousolity of this discussion, save for were science and religion intersect.
[quote]pat wrote:<<< Vacuums are not a lack of existence, >>>[/quote]If this is dearest Christopher’s definition as well then he and I are talking about 2 different things.[quote]pat wrote:<<< in fact there is no evidence of purely empty space. >>>[/quote]My point, and though I haven’t spent a ton of time on it, it appears that the very notion of essential ontological “nothingness” is unintelligible even from the standpoint of logic. In this context a very big word in need itself of definition I can’t even construct a satisfactorily coherent definition for the purpose of this post. Which isn’t to be confused with my declaring that since I can’t, nobody can. Like I say I haven’t really chased it down like I have other questions so I haven’t locked that door just yet. I’d be intrigued to see some attempts sometime. [quote]pat wrote:<<< Every time we look, there’s always something there. >>>[/quote]It does appear that way doesn’t it? [quote]pat wrote:<<< Though perhaps inevitable, >>>[/quote]You’ve definitely been around long enough to know. [quote]pat wrote:<<< I would like to limit the religiosity of this discussion, save for where science and religion intersect.[/quote] This is your thread. I will leave it to you to say when and where that is. I meant no disrespect.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Way before scientists even speculated DM, Ancient Occultists already knew about this…nothing new.
Our bodies themselves are mostly “Dark Matter” per se… we’re all mostly empty space when observed sub-atomically, but our natural eyes deceive us, we observe each other in society as being mostly “matter”, but that’s bullshit, we are not mostly material substance at all.
[/quote]
Yes we are…Our bodies are 100% material. Even if most of the material is air…air is not nothing.[/quote]
Um well our bodies are neither mostly air or mostly nothing. Air is matter(oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, etc…)
Also, Dark Matter has nothing to do with the nuclear model of an atom where the mass is concentrated in a relatively small space with electrons occupy a relatively large and “empty” space around the nucleus. The standard(well the very simplified version) model currently is that electrons are the instantaneous terminal points of a electromagnetic field representing integers of the value -1 and the nucleus is the fixed(euclidean geometry) terminal point of mass representing charge as integers of the value +1.
In other more simple terms, an atom is not: nucleus, empty space electrons. An atom is more accurately the field generated by massive objects with unlike charge.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:<<< The very definition of “nothing”, at least one meaningful to us, does not and indeed I would contend, CANNOT exist. From my again Christian philosophical perspective, the fact of this invincible resistance to definition does not in itself preclude existence, [/quote]Wait…you don’t believe that nothing can exist or does exist…this is huge Tirib…answer wisely. ;)[/quote]Keep tryin Christopher. =] I am doubting that there can be such a “thing” as "NOthing" and even then allow for such a “thing” that may simply be undefinable and incomprehensible to us as finite derivative creatures.
[/quote]So, you don’t believe a vacuum can exist?[/quote]Why should I?
[/quote]To deny the possibility of a vacuum was to deny God’s creative power, for nothing was impossible to an omnipotent God. >>>[/quote] That’s a postulation. Not a reason. There is to us a meaninglessly vaaaaast array of “things” that are possible to God but have never been brought about by Him. If by “vacuum” you mean actual nothingness then I’ve already said it’s possible, but will most likely never be to us an observable phenomena like matter. Matter which it may be argued in it’s most basic “essence” isn’t even observable. [quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< Thomas E. Woods. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (pp. 89-90). Kindle Edition. >>>[/quote] You have NO idea of the noose your head would have been in if I could ever have gotten Sloth to pursue the line of dialog that famously was our undoing. [quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< And, you’d be agreeing with Aristotle. ;)[/quote]There’s plenty of things I agree with Aristotle on Chris. Like 2+2=4. We’re both children of Adam and bearers of the image of our God after all. Aristotle’s (and Aquinas’s) fatal error is at the level of epistemology. The how and why. Not the what and whether.[quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< A vacuum being able to exist, and a vacuum existing are two different things. Just FYI.[/quote]That’s what I said in the first place. [/quote]
I wish you could see what I see when I reply to you…it’s like a wall of text with no paragraphs.
Noose? That’s racist, I’m black. 
How did they go wrong on epistemology? What writing (can I get a quote) of Aquinas are you referring to? Aquinas spent almost as much time as shutting Aristotle down as he did proving Aristotle was right (but that the Moslem’s were wrong in their conclusions).
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:<<< Vacuums are not a lack of existence, >>>[/quote]If this is dearest Christopher’s definition as well then he and I are talking about 2 different things.[quote]pat wrote:<<< in fact there is no evidence of purely empty space. >>>[/quote]My point, and though I haven’t spent a ton of time on it, it appears that the very notion of essential ontological “nothingness” is unintelligible even from the standpoint of logic. In this context a very big word in need itself of definition I can’t even construct a satisfactorily coherent definition for the purpose of this post. Which isn’t to be confused with my declaring that since I can’t, nobody can. Like I say I haven’t really chased it down like I have other questions so I haven’t locked that door just yet. I’d be intrigued to see some attempts sometime. [quote]pat wrote:<<< Every time we look, there’s always something there. >>>[/quote]It does appear that way doesn’t it? [quote]pat wrote:<<< Though perhaps inevitable, >>>[/quote]You’ve definitely been around long enough to know. [quote]pat wrote:<<< I would like to limit the religiosity of this discussion, save for where science and religion intersect.[/quote] This is your thread. I will leave it to you to say when and where that is. I meant no disrespect.
[/quote]
Definition is a space that lacks matter. Ergo, even if it did exist it would not be observable. God can create a vacuum, he very well may have (hidden behind some planet, in a galaxy far-far away, with the flying spaghetti monster people keep talking about), but if we are to take his character and promise seriously then this would go against the order of the Universe and his promise (though since you reject Wisdom you’re missing a very valuable piece of scripture to make this idea concrete rather than assumed (based off Catholic theology which is based off scripture (talk about catch 22))).
Yes, even “Thoughts are things” too… Proof: Think of hot sex with your lady without touching
yourself at all, no dirty pics either.
Odds are Mr. Happy aroused, even if just a little, yes?
How did this initiate? By a thought and only a thought.
Brother Chris you seem like an excellent Catholic Apologist.
I think one of the things that disturbed me awhile back was this Priest talking
to a small group of Children, about the importance of a small piece of cloth called
a “Scapular”.
The Priest essentially was talking about how it can take the edge off the suffering
in Purgatory, and even said that people can spend 40 or 50 years in this state.
I observed in astonishment…telling this to little kids, how exactly did the Priest
surmise that one can spend “40 or 50 years” there?
IDK man, I know a number of really good Catholics…real sweethearts man,
but this denomination can be truly scary sometimes, it’s truly a ‘toe the line’
denomination, very strict, and the absolute scariest guy to listen to is Father Michael Dimond, my
God man, according to him, practically EVERYBODY’S going to the bad place after we leave here.
This young Maverick Priest gives no quarter, he even called the last, long reigning Pope John Paul
“antichrist” in his policies, and had some unflattering things to say about Benedict as well.
He’s also on youtube as well if ya wanna listen to his stuff.
Do you know of Michael Dimond?
[quote]Karado wrote:
Brother Chris you seem like an excellent Catholic Apologist.
I think one of the things that disturbed me awhile back was this Priest talking
to a small group of Children, about the importance of a small piece of cloth called
a “Scapular”.
The Priest essentially was talking about how it can take the edge off the suffering
in Purgatory, and even said that people can spend 40 or 50 years in this state.
I observed in astonishment…telling this to little kids, how exactly did the Priest
surmise that one can spend “40 or 50 years” there?
IDK man, I know a number of really good Catholics…real sweethearts man,
but this denomination can be truly scary sometimes, it’s truly a ‘toe the line’
denomination, very strict, and the absolute scariest guy to listen to is Father Michael Dimond, my
God man, according to him, practically EVERYBODY’S going to the bad place after we leave here.
This young Maverick Priest gives no quarter, he even called the last, long reigning Pope John Paul
“antichrist” in his policies, and had some unflattering things to say about Benedict as well.
He’s also on youtube as well if ya wanna listen to his stuff.
Do you know of Michael Dimond?
[/quote]
C’mon now, give the catholic church a wee bit of credit, at LEAST pope benny tossed the concept of limbo after about 800 years. Now at least the poor unbaptized children are allowed into heaven, despite their filthy original sin.
Waka Waka…
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:<<< Vacuums are not a lack of existence, >>>[/quote]If this is dearest Christopher’s definition as well then he and I are talking about 2 different things.[quote]pat wrote:<<< in fact there is no evidence of purely empty space. >>>
[/quote]My point, and though I haven’t spent a ton of time on it, it appears that the very notion of essential ontological “nothingness” is unintelligible even from the standpoint of logic. In this context a very big word in need itself of definition I can’t even construct a satisfactorily coherent definition for the purpose of this post. Which isn’t to be confused with my declaring that since I can’t, nobody can. Like I say I haven’t really chased it down like I have other questions so I haven’t locked that door just yet. I’d be intrigued to see some attempts sometime.
[/quote]
You are right in that ‘nothingness’ is unintelligible in that in literal terms, ‘it’ does not exist. So there is no concept of it as it’s a complete absence of everything. Nothing literally does not exist, by definition, it cannot.
None taken, but I just don’t want to introduce it prematurely. It will inevitably pop up.
I would like to hear from Dr. Matt though as he knows this stuff better than all of us. My last discussion about dark matter was that there wasn’t sufficient evidence for it’s existence.
[quote]Karado wrote:
Brother Chris you seem like an excellent Catholic Apologist.
I think one of the things that disturbed me awhile back was this Priest talking
to a small group of Children, about the importance of a small piece of cloth called
a “Scapular”.
The Priest essentially was talking about how it can take the edge off the suffering
in Purgatory, and even said that people can spend 40 or 50 years in this state.
I observed in astonishment…telling this to little kids, how exactly did the Priest
surmise that one can spend “40 or 50 years” there?
IDK man, I know a number of really good Catholics…real sweethearts man,
but this denomination can be truly scary sometimes, it’s truly a ‘toe the line’
denomination, very strict, and the absolute scariest guy to listen to is Father Michael Dimond, my
God man, according to him, practically EVERYBODY’S going to the bad place after we leave here.
This young Maverick Priest gives no quarter, he even called the last, long reigning Pope John Paul
“antichrist” in his policies, and had some unflattering things to say about Benedict as well.
He’s also on youtube as well if ya wanna listen to his stuff.
Do you know of Michael Dimond?
[/quote]
This article is on Dark Matter, we can take this discussion else where?
Sorry BC.
“C’mon now, give the catholic church a wee bit of credit, at LEAST pope benny tossed the concept of limbo after about 800 years. Now at least the poor unbaptized children are allowed into heaven, despite their filthy original sin.”
Yeah, I read that awhile back…WTF., nobody questions these things, practically NOBODY!
Who is aware? Why are these new ‘rules’ changed and accepted with no challenge?
And why was the old limbo rule even accepted in the first place?
To be fair I guess no denomination holds up to scrutiny…I think I’ll just stay ignorant
of this erudite stuff and just have a basic ‘third world’ religious mindset, just not “think”
or “educate” myself anymore…and just simply believe, and not worry about any new extra-biblical
rules that come out of the Vatican.
Damn man, what’s with the quoting style?
Its like your trying to block people from quoting you…
I’ve thought about it some before and then felt really goofy for doing so, but then again I do that all the time. By NOthing your getting at the idea of nonexistence, if we are thinking of the same “thing”?
When I was little the concept of zero used to put me in a weird zone of thought but now the concept is trivial. That’s because zero isn’t nothingness, it just looked kind of like it to me back then.
I can try to break my angle on it by way of Lao Tzu. I love this book - Tao Te Ching part 11
[quote]We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.[/quote]I read the first 10 and I feel my mind going somewhere else. But when I hit that 11th part, my mind zooms away, haha
For purposes of what we’re getting at here tho, I ‘disagree’ with him. Humans are using “it”, and interacting - so it’s not the same. He’s talking about ‘empty’ space which ain’t gonna be ‘empty’ for long.
Not to mention, in the mode your talking about - space itself counts as a ‘thing’ - right?
Same with the concept of zero. But true nonexistence cannot be interacted with at all by definition because there is nothing - not even a tiny miniscule component to interact with. The nanosecond you think you have interacted with it, you are dealing with something else that only seemed like ‘it’ for a second. Like the number zero for example (again) we use it as a placeholder in numbers like 10 or 100 or as a concept for when I run out of ammo in a video game or something. It’s still a ‘thing’ in our mind, even if its an absence that is still not true nonexistence because you interact with that still - lacking exists and makes your stomach growl. No ontological nothing will ever touch ‘it’ because its defined as the undefinable, as soon as you come up with a cool way to redefine ‘it’ in order to allow interaction, you’ve gotten caught in the slipperiness and are dealing with something else entirely
‘it’ might… ‘exist’ for lack of a better word, but not in this mode of logic we use of 2 + 2 = 4. Maybe somewhere else I guess. This is approaching towards my last post of our first discussion - if I remember correctly. And its just goofy man - and I get the funny feeling Kamui is gonna samurai me to bits and pieces…
Kamui would just say this :
What is problematic is the extension of the concept of “nothing”, not its definition, which is a negative but perfectly clear one.
concepts like “thing” and “existence” are on the opposite side of the spectrum, so to speak.
Their extension is obvious, their (non-tautological) definition impossible.
Cool
I think I survived that in one piece?
[quote]Kamui would just say this :
What is problematic is the extension of the concept of “nothing”, not its definition, which is a negative but perfectly clear one.
concepts like “thing” and “existence” are on the opposite side of the spectrum, so to speak.
Their extension is obvious, their (non-tautological) definition impossible.
[/quote]I only have a second here guys. Kamui it never ceases to amaze me how you n I communicate. I had not thought of it this way, but you are absolutely correct. The trouble with an absolute and universal negation is not so much it’s abstract definition as it is the impossibility at this point in history of existentially encountering it.
On the other hand we experience “things” that “exist” as a necessary feature of merely being conscious. However, it is not possible to define the notions of “thing” or “existence” in a non tautological manner. That is to say that any attempt quickly degenerates into a series of comparative references to equally UN-self-definable entities.
In short we can conceive of nothing, but not experience it and we cannot escape the experience of things, but cannot ultimately define even one.
Of course I would say that only a mind in which every thought is brought captive to Christ. One which is thereby empowered by the triune God of the ancient Christian scriptures " who is Himself the ground of all being and In whose sight all things are open and manifest; whose knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature; so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain."
Only a mind that operates by faith in this God can be made free of this ultimately subjective and uncertain bondage of sinful autonomous man.
I posted this in another thread. Or maybe it was earlier in this one. Not to slight anyone else, but:
It was earlier in this thread.
Maybe you didn’t see my answer on page 1.
[quote]TooHuman wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Way before scientists even speculated DM, Ancient Occultists already knew about this…nothing new.
Our bodies themselves are mostly “Dark Matter” per se… we’re all mostly empty space when observed sub-atomically, but our natural eyes deceive us, we observe each other in society as being mostly “matter”, but that’s bullshit, we are not mostly material substance at all.
[/quote]
Yes we are…Our bodies are 100% material. Even if most of the material is air…air is not nothing.[/quote]
Um well our bodies are neither mostly air or mostly nothing. Air is matter(oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, etc…)
Also, Dark Matter has nothing to do with the nuclear model of an atom where the mass is concentrated in a relatively small space with electrons occupy a relatively large and “empty” space around the nucleus. The standard(well the very simplified version) model currently is that electrons are the instantaneous terminal points of a electromagnetic field representing integers of the value -1 and the nucleus is the fixed(euclidean geometry) terminal point of mass representing charge as integers of the value +1.
In other more simple terms, an atom is not: nucleus, empty space electrons. An atom is more accurately the field generated by massive objects with unlike charge.[/quote]
Could you unpack that a little? I am not a physicist, my area is biochem, but i am curious. And whst do you mean by “massive objects”? Ive never bought into the layperson bohr model of the atom although it obviously is very handy simplification for all applicstions, i viewed the electrons more as waves. But from my uneducated look at whst you just said it would seem the standard model has certsin limited aspects in common with string theory?? That doesn’t seem right but my inadequate understanding is that according to string theory matter is the terminal point of extradimensional strings…which would seem essentially the same regarding electeons being terminal points.
Forgive me, it has been years since i read or reread any physics at all, even “popular” physics, so i am sure i am not communicating well. also, messaging from my phone lol
[quote]kamui wrote:
Hmm, i don’t know.
How many dozens of pages does a short interview have ?
Just kidding.
I will email you some contacts information.
[/quote]Oh cool. Thank you sir. I just now did see this. tiribulus at gmail dot com
It’s five questions, but as you well know, whole multi volume sets could be and have been written about each one.
Oh yeah. Was I pretty close in my exposition of your statement above?