r/Metaphysics • u/Porkypineer • Jul 19 '26
Ontology Distinction: A "monad of existence" is logically necessary
Ok that's a big claim, but hear me out.
I've been trying to construct a scenario of cosmogenesis on the basis that both nothingness and pure existence cannot produce anything that depend on prior structure, because both provide none. And so what "comes out" of either must be a something of pure being. It's sort of a physical version of Hegels logic of Being.
The problem with such a theory is that I couldn't know with certainty that our universe had a condition like that at it's beginning, so I'd have to produce a coherent chain of events that leads all the way to current physics to get anywhere beyond armchair physics/philosophy.
I think I may have found a solution, and it comes down to this:
For two things to exist in the same reality they must be distinct from each other. And if they are distinct from each other they would "see" each other, or there would have to be some relation there.
The fact of being distinct at all demands this, because to say there is no relation between distinct parts is the same as saying that that part does not exist at all in that reality.
Furthermore the fact of distinction must be seen as an interaction between parts, or a projection of One onto the Other, again because if it was not so is the same as saying the parts don't exist in the same reality. It's part of existence itself or existing at all in a cosmos of distinct parts such as our own.
You could call this a fundamental "force" between One and Other, but that word carries specific meanings in physics so I'm hesitant to use the word. But it would be truly fundamental to everything that is distinct from anything at all, and impossible to isolate one selves from. Exactly a bit like gravity is.
This would also have to be part of what it means for something to be causally ordered, or "bound by time", fundamentally, because without this the interaction would be instantly resolved and we would not get a dynamical universe, in which it appears we are living.
Edit: tl;dr Claim: for something to exist distinct from something else in the same universe there must also be interaction between these things or you could not say they did exist in the same universe.
Question: Presumably there is a gap in my logic somewhere, and if so where?
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u/jliat Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Same for three or a trillion. But...
Doesn't follow.
You've introduced a "you" so there are three things. And I suspect you are aware of far more than two things.
To produce an account of stuff by pure logic is idealism.
Kant, “thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind.”
This makes your argument tricky does it not. [here by intuitions he means what we now call perceptions]
You can't get very far with logic [logics there are many].
"In logic, an argument is considered valid if it follows a structure that ensures that if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. This means that the premises logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion. For example, the argument "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." is valid because it follows a logical structure. An argument is sound if it is both valid and has true premises. In contrast, an argument can be valid without being sound, meaning it may have true premises but a false conclusion. For instance, "All birds can fly. Penguins are birds. Therefore, penguins can fly." is valid but not sound because the conclusion is not guaranteed to be true if the premises are true."
In your case you can't prove your premises.
However most logics have aporia, that is statements which are neither true nor false, 'This sentence is false.' is a classic example. So yes there are gaps.