Discourse on Nothing

1.          Let Thought =df (equal, as a matter of definition) the directing of the mind toward some proposition, ‘P’.

         You can think if you’re reading this paper. But can you Know (with a capital ‘K’ for added effect)? The purpose of this paper will be to show, through a convoluted chain of logical inferences and stipulative (made up) definitions, that you do Know something. These precautions are to make sure you will have to go back and reread sections to understand just what the hell it meant.

You Know you have a memory you call your first. It’s from the third person, however strange it seems. It comes at you from a hallway in a preschool in New Jersey. You’re balancing on two legs in a plastic chair with some sort of mullet, and just as you’re about to fall, the memory stops. You Know you have this memory, but do you Know it’s true? Well,

2.          Let truth =df an actual event, object or place occurring at an actual time, ‘T.’

A thought might only be true if it corresponds with reality (correspondence theory), so you’d have to, at least, Know that. But some things don’t require you to have been there and seen that, touched this, or Known it through some cognitive faculty like reason. Let’s call that necessary. So,

3.          Let x = a necessary truth iff (if, and only if) there is no possible world in which x does not exist.

You like to think that God is an ‘x’. Do you Know God? Are you irrational in believing? Maybe, but you like to think things could have turned out differently somehow. It makes you feel a little more free. For instance, there might have been some possible world where God made a special cognitive faculty for detecting him, and yours is, hopefully for you, working just great.

4.          Let y = a possible world iff there exists at least one contingent truth (object, region, point sized object [whatever the hell that is]).

But your world is the actual world. You think you Know that.

5.          Let z = an actual world iff It is the world inhabited by you.



6.          Let God =df The necessary, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, creator of ‘z’.



You haven’t seen Him, but you’ve yet to see anything infinite, you think. Well, actually,  when you were a child, you had this recurring dream. It wasn’t really a dream, though, well,

a.          Let a dream =df images, pictures, stories, sounds and thoughts occurring while not in a waking state.

But wait. Waking state?

b.          Let a waking state =df Images, pictures, stories, sounds and thoughts occurring in ‘z’.



Right now, you’re awake, right? Reading a paper or screen. You can touch it, right? Is it necessary that you touched it? Is it an ‘x’? I’m sure there’s some possible world, say, ‘s’, in which you chose not to touch it, or read it, or in which it wasn’t even written.



7.          Let a contingent truth =df A being, object, or event that does not exist in some possible world, ‘s’.



Is all of ‘z’ contingent, then? What about God, though? (Is he even a part of ‘z’?)



8.          Some Principle: A necessary truth cannot be the cause of a contingent truth.



That seems to you to be an ‘x’ as well. Of course, you don’t Know Him. Not really. You defined Him, but not saw, heard or described either. For all you Know, you could be making mistakes as to what’s necessary, contingent, true or false, right? Let’s just call that epistemically possible. For all you Know.



Like the memory you have as a child, trying to sleep. You had your eyes closed, but it cannot be called a ‘dream.’ In front of you, your eyelids created a sort of void, well,



c.          Let void =df something full of nothing. [Infinite in nature.]



Wait, full of nothing? Well the ‘void’ was only full of a little nothing at first, but it expanded. You could feel it extend beyond your eyelids. There were no images or sounds, just a rushing sensation from being witness to this exponential expansion. You couldn’t describe it to anyone because it didn’t look like anything, but you felt it approach infinity. It had long expanded beyond the imagined house, city and planet beyond your eyelids that you believed were occurring in ‘z’ at the moment. As it grew faster to an unbearable speed, you’d flip your eyes open to the ceiling. You’d close them again, feel it repeat until you were too tired to fight it anymore, and just let it happen, falling into darkness. You figured that was death.



Did that memory really happen? Can you prove it, even to yourself? You have only an imprint. All these things you thought you knew, for all you Know, might have never existed and maybe never will. Fine, then,



9.          Let all contingent truths be unKnowable.



Like that time you had to go to church with your Mom and Grandparents when you were seven. Do you Know, with absolute certainty, that Ian told you God didn’t exist in the house before you left, or is it possible that never happened? For all you Know, he never said,



“When you die, you’re dead,” next to the island in the kitchen. “You just become  nothing,” he might never have said. You didn’t want to believe him, but you remember sitting in the pews, staring at the giant statue of Jesus nailed to the cross, trying to believe otherwise. You closed your eyes in an attempt to see God, but all you saw was an endless void behind your eyelids. You opened them again, following the voice of the pastor. You remember this as the first time you realized you couldn’t see Him in the stained glass windows of organized religion. There probably exists some possible world in which you didn’t begin searching elsewhere for Him.

But you did. Well, you think you did at least. Yet, you could never now consider all those memories true ‘Knowledge’. You capitalized the word for a reason.



10.          Let Knowledge =df A belief that is, necessarily, never consistent with falsehood and indubitable for the believer.



Your father thinks he Knows he built the shuttle that made it to the moon. That memory’s clearly consistent with falsehood. Or is it? It’s indubitable for him at least, but wait,



11.          Let Indubitable =df A belief, P, is indubitable for S at T iff it is psychologically, logically, or normatively impossible for S to doubt P.



You tested the psychological dubitability of all those beliefs the first time you took mushrooms. You felt time evaporate during the come-up, but wait, you asked,



d.          Let time =df The measurement of motion between two regions of space, i.e. a sequence of events.



The walls began breathing, posters on the walls bleeding. The clock on the stereo spoke in some alien language, and the only thing that existed was you, in that moment, curled up in the fetal position on Matt Malcham’s bean bag chair.



e.          Let a moment =df An un-extended slice of time. [Infinite in nature.]



In that moment, you were awake inside of the dream, you repeated to yourself. You felt Him, or something like Him in the melting faces glossed over the darkness as you tried to fall asleep and forget all you’d unlearned.



So you went in search of the ‘x’s, devoid of contingency, the beliefs that you could not melt away so easily. There could be some possible world where you didn’t figure that philosophy classes were the best place to begin after high school. But you realized, as the kid sitting next to you refused to accept that he didn’t Know (with a capital ‘K’) whether or not wood would burn the next time someone lit it on fire, that you Knew you. As the kid stormed out of the room in an empirical rage, you came to the conclusion not long after Descartes’ ‘Evil Demon’ argument was read,



12.          Let You =df A necessary truth.



You’d found an ‘x’. So, you continued your search. After all, it was you that was searching, whether or not you were just a bodiless mind floating in an endless void. You wanted to Know more, though, so you took notes. Internalism vs. Externalism, Rationalism vs. Empiricism, Simples vs. Atomless Gunk. You generated your own arbitrary, stipulative definitions in hopes of discovering an ‘x’ of your own. You looked for a way to get rid of the bull shit philosophers called ‘possible worlds.’ That way, every truth could be necessary. Who gave a rat’s ass if Alvin Plantinga thought it might be possible in some other universe that God had implanted a ‘Sensus Divinitatus’ in humans, some make-believe cognitive faculty, that was capable of detecting Him without any evidence or justification.



You start writing. God’s necessary and so are you, you think. Then,

13.          Let ‘P’ =df the conjunction of all x’s occurring in ‘z’ at ‘T’.