On Truth and Falsity

                      The Uses of the Idea of Nothing

 A person goes to a cafe expecting to meet his friend Pierre at the cafe, but his friend is not there. The system is "Meet friend at cafe." The system changes to "Pierre not there." The word "not" means the absence of Pierre. Pierre still exists somewhere, but his presence at the cafe equals nothing. This means the word "nothing" can be used to exclude a sense object or a thought object from any particular system. All sentences are systems of meaningful words. A man thinks about the systems he desires to use to build his house. He considers bricks, but then he changes his mind and decides to use only lumber to build his house. His system becomes "Lumber but not bricks." He uses his idea of nothing to exclude bricks from his systems of building his house. The human stream of consciousness uses the idea of nothing constantly every day in forming many of the decisions humans make. "I will do this and not that." "I will go there and not to the other place." "I will eat this and not that." Humans can use the idea of nothing to consider a particular sense object or thought object to be equal to nothing as far as formulating a particular system is concerned.

Humans also use the idea of nothing to indicate the nonexistence of a particular system. A man tells his friends that he saw a ghost. His system is "I saw a ghost." His friends deny that he saw a real ghost because ghosts do not exist. Their system is "Ghosts do not exist." His friends may claim that he is lying or that he had an hallucination or a misapprehension, but he did not see a real ghost. If the man was lying, then his claim equals nothing. But if the man had an hallucination or a misapprehension, then he actually saw a thought system comprised of real thought objects. For instance, "He saw a white mist with a human shape." Every thought object in his system can only be real because he learned them from past experience. "White" is real. "Mist" is real." "Human" is real, and "shape" is real. The only thought objects he put into his system were real because he derived them from past experiences. Some may object that thought objects cannot be real, but if consciousness can be compared to a camera and film, then a picture taken by a camera and the film can only be as real as the film itself. The man recalled his past experiences of real sense objects as real thought objects to form his system called a "ghost."

As a universal rule, humans always formulate systems or observe systems composed of real sense objects and/or thought objects derived from experience. The fact that sense objects and thought objects can be formulated into useful systems means that they can only be real. They cannot be unreal because unreality never appears to consciousness. All of the thought objects that the man observed that composed the system called a "ghost" were real, and yet, "ghosts do not exist." The ghost was only a false system. But where is the falsity? All of the thought objects in the appearance of the "ghost" were real, but the system of judgment that, "The ghost did not exist" simply means that the real and useful idea of nothing was used to indicate that the system called a "ghost" equals nothing even though every thought object in that system had to be real. The idea of nothing has meaning. It can indicate that the nonexistence in false systems always happens to be due to the falsity of the combinations of real sense objects or thought objects that always compose false systems. All false systems comprise real sense objects and/0r thought objects. Only reality appears to humans. Unreality never appears.

Therefore, all sense objects and thought objects have to be real in their appearance and their meaning. All useful systems composed of real sense objects and thought objects also have to be real because they also all have a useful and real meaning. All false systems also have a real meaning. They all mean nothing. The real and useful idea of nothing is used by consciousness to indicate the nonexistence of all false systems as systems. The idea of nothing can only be real because it has meaning, but nonexistence itself that adheres to all false systems has no meaning whatsoever because it never appears to consciousness. Mathematics can again be used to illustrate this universal rule. 2+3=6 is a false system even though every sign and number in it has real meaning. This false system really means nothing which also means that the useful idea of nothing indicates the useful knowledge that this system is false. Humans need to know the real difference between that which means something and that which means nothing. False systems have no meaning except that indicated by the idea of nothing. False systems never have any usefulness. This fact can only mean that nonexistence never appears to intelligent consciousness. Since nonexistence never appears to consciousness, then that fact can only mean that all that does appear to consciousness must be useful and real, even the idea of nothing. The real idea of nothing proves useful because it can indicate the uselessness of false systems.

The third use of the idea of nothing is that it indicates space between objects in sense and thought experience. But the idea of nothing and the space between objects is not exactly the same thing. When a person sees sense objects, he sees through nothing to the objects in the distance. He never directly sees the nothingness. Space is not nothing. Space is always distance. In the stream of human consciousness, as a person continuously thinks about ideas and systems of thought, he puts a space between each thought and system of thought just as one uses the space bar on a keyboard. He may not forget his former thoughts. He simply puts them into the distant past. Even if a person pushes a rock with his hand, a space will exist between the inertia of the rock and the feeling of force exerted by his hand. Space always exists between consciousness and its sense and thought objects. But humans possess the useful idea of nothing even though humans have never derived that real idea from sense experience.

Consciousness can only be conscious of that which is real. Sense experience cannot be the only form of experience. Because every sense object and thought object is useful to consciousness and has meaning, then every sense object and thought object has been experienced, even the idea of nothing. So how did consciousness ever obtain the real idea of nothing? If, behind limited human consciousness, there exists an infinite field of ideas and thought objects, then human consciousness could have obtained the real idea of nothing as a gift from that field. If that field were finite, it would have to have emerged from nothingness, which is impossible. In order for it to exist, that field would have to be infinite and eternal. Since all sense objects and thought objects cannot be real without consciousness, then that field would have to be an Infinite and Eternal Consciousness. In other words, God would have to exist. John 1:1; Genesis 1:1.