The Dynamics of Non-Being

Maybe there is something rather than nothing because the nothingness force acted on itself, and when the nothing nothings itself it produces something. Robert Nozick suggested this as a candidate explanation of the fact that there is something rather than nothing. If he is right that it is a candida...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Skow, Bradford (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2010-04-15T16:09:24Z.
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Summary:Maybe there is something rather than nothing because the nothingness force acted on itself, and when the nothing nothings itself it produces something. Robert Nozick suggested this as a candidate explanation of the fact that there is something rather than nothing. If he is right that it is a candidate explanation, we should pay attention: there are not many candidates out there. But his "explanation" looks, instead, like a paradigm case of philosophical nonsense. In this paper I describe a "metaphysical dynamics" that makes sense out of Nozick's apparent nonsense.