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Suppose there only ever existed one indecomposable, irreducible object.

What could distinguish it from nothingness? From not existing, as there is nothing besides it that could deduce its information?

Itself?

But then it must somehow fetch its own information, but since it's the only thing without any change existing, it stays identical and no information is fetched.

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    isn't there an answer to this in physics singularity idk
    – user71083
    Commented Jan 19 at 13:33
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    "logic"? "epistemology"? I do not believe that there is a way to answer such a question; maybe there is nothing, neither a single "indecomposable, irreducible object". Follow comment above regarding singularity for physics speculations about the origin of "everything". Commented Jan 19 at 14:06
  • That’s because humans are two-headed, seeing difference where there is none and confusing existence and non-existence. One unchanging thing exists, signed the Eleatic Monists. Only a human could confuse existence and non-existence.
    – J Kusin
    Commented Jan 19 at 14:41
  • 0 (zero) can be such a thing. Looking in Universe, we may conclude that Everything is from Nothing and Neither So. We can see, Stars and Interstellar Space. Interstellar Space, is that something that is as You said: "irreducible object" or LAST FRONTIER. :) Today, I wrote an article about where at the end I said something about "everything, nothing and neither so" Sharing as is, maybe interested.
    – user71091
    Commented Jan 19 at 14:48
  • you kinda seem to be asking several things in order to appear to be asking something interesting. it makes for bad poetry and worse philosophy. it would not not be offensively so, if not for how you seem to think you have clarified an important topic and argued for a bold conclusion, rather than strung some ideas together into a sentence
    – user71083
    Commented Jan 20 at 14:09

6 Answers 6

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You are conflating the idea of existence with the idea of knowing that something exists. Suppose there was a Universe which contained nothing but three irreducible blobs and a person who is able to see the blobs. If the person dies, do the three blobs cease to exist?

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  • I have to imagine the three blobs are respectively a blob of air, a blob of food&water, and a blob of love, so that the person can survive.
    – Stef
    Commented Jan 20 at 14:28
  • @Stef But the question says the person dies -- obviously because of the lack of at least one of those substances.
    – Barmar
    Commented Jan 20 at 16:35
  • Perhaps from a broken heart! Commented Jan 20 at 17:54
  • @stef I am sure that were you to find yourself obliged to act as observer in such a scenario, there would be no shortage of volunteer blobs! Commented Jan 20 at 17:56
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Imagine empty spacetime and in addition either a single electron or a single photon. The elementary particle has properties which empty spacetime does not have: Energy, momentum, the electron has in addition a spin.

Why asking further questions about information? These physical properties do not presuppose an observer.

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  • But don't you need an observer in order to have a collapse?
    – Wowser
    Commented Jan 19 at 15:36
  • Or, to formulate it differently: If existence is correspondence to external reality aside from the a-priori, then what external reality is there if there is only one object? At the very least, an isolated object must be logically independent of every other thing, as even sharing predicates gives one the information about its existence/definability.
    – Wowser
    Commented Jan 19 at 15:37
  • Can it really have momentum if it's the only thing in existence? Velocity, and by extension momentum, is relative, isn't it? But if it's the only thing in existence, isn't then the only real frame of reference it's rest frame where its momentum is zero? Or in other words, if we compare two universes, where one particle exists, and has different momentum (if such a thing actually exists in this case), can we find any difference?
    – kutschkem
    Commented Jan 19 at 16:34
  • @kutschkem You are right: The value of the momentum depends on the coordinate system. In Special Relativity dynamics is expressed by 4-vectors. The 4-vector of the dynamics composes the energy E (1 entry) and the momentum p (3 entries). The four entries depend on the choice of the coordinate system, but their combination E^2 – p^2 = m_0^2 , the square of the rest mass m_0, is independent(!) from the choice of the coordinate system. This formula holds for the energy-momentum vector of a massive particle like an electron, and with m_0=0 also for the massless photon. (Note: I normalized c =1)
    – Jo Wehler
    Commented Jan 19 at 17:41
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    @Wowser Ad your first comment: Which collapse? - Ad your second comment: Which external reality? The reality is empty spacetime and the elementary particle. Due to the small mass you may neglect any interaction between empty space and the elementary particle.
    – Jo Wehler
    Commented Jan 19 at 17:49
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People have proposed universes consisting of a single particle that goes between the beginning and end of the universe and back to the beginning again, only this time taking a different path so it appears to be another particle. That does not seem to correspond with our universe, which has a beginning but seems likely to expand forever.

Otherwise, you would seem to have the Creature from the Abyss of No Dimensions from Flatland. It knows nothing outside itself, but it is complex enough (somehow) to have an intelligence.

A less extreme example might be an intelligence that exists within another system with no external communication. The world telephone network is about as complex as the human brain, with a similar number of nodes, and a semi-random structure. It could be routing data for us, but also thinking. But what would it think about?

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The difference is made by itself and nothingness. Difference is just lacking a property which one has, or having a property which one lacks. The distinction is quite simple: nothingness has no property, that thing has one property (itself), since nothingness has no property then it lacks that property, voilá.

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What could distinguish it from nothingness? From not existing, as there is nothing besides it that could deduce its information?

What you may have said there is that, if there is one thing, it is nondual. Few people think non-duality is the same as not existing. Aside from that, it reads like you are trying to argue for a conclusion you cannot think, let alone believe. If so, there is a small amount of self referential felicity to that (being unable to think of being unable to think of something), but you're not about to convince me that only you exist, so hey hum.

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The relation of pure being to pure nothing, is that they are both negations of each other.

In a more Hegelian sense, they are both implying and negating each other. A pure nothing can only be a nothing insofar there is something else in relation to it, a something which is not nothing.

These are their only attributes, it has no capacity to deduce any information, nor is there any information to deduce.

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