1003. nothing

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Hartshorne argues that "nothing is one of two things: either it is a mere wordJ with no objective designation at all; or it is the realm of primordial possibilities, apart from all particular actualizations. Objective nothing can only be pure possibility. Now this pure possibility (which is itself not possible but real) is not completely without differenceJbut only without actual (specific and particular [sic: or individual? NOJ "particular" is not simply synonymous with "individual/' because it could apply equally well to "event." Thus Hartshorne saysJ e.g'J "Every new particular, say .fu introduces a n,Aw lowest level universal in the formJ 'prehending (remembering or perceiving) ~' of which there will be countless subsequent instantiations" (Insights and Oversights: 83).]) difference. It has a certain structureJ and this structure is that of God-world-no particular worldJ and not God knowing any particular world (or with any determinate actual content of intuition)J but God-as-such knowing world-as-such. Thus God in [God's] essence is the inseparable correlate of world-in-general. ... This correlationJ God-as-such and world-as-suchJ is not 'nothing' in the sense of a phrase without designation, but is an objective abstract aspect of every actual state of God-world. God-as-such is not an actuality, but yet it existsJ by virtue of some suitable actuality or other" ("The Divine Relativity and Absoluteness: A Reply [to John Wild]": 52 f.).
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Elsewhere, in discussing a legitimate meaning of "emptiness" (by contrast with the self-contradictory concept of "emptiness" in Buddhism)J Hartshorne also talks about "the idea of pure or logical possibililty." It contains no
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definite things but only the undifferentiated potentiality for ~things. It is
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everything in potency and nothing in act. The best name for it is creativity,
abstracted from any actual product or creatures. It is the Tao that is nameless, the
formless source of all forms. But it is only an abstraction. Berdyaev calls it
'me-onic freedom,' the non-being which is yet not nothing, and which not even
God can produce or destroy. Any act of God would be a supreme instance of itJ but
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not the only one" ("'Emptiness' and Fullness in Asiatic and Western Thought": 417 f.).
3. In yet another passage Hartshorne says, liNon-being refers either to otherness, that this instance or kind of becoming is not that instance or kind, or it refers to what could have but has not, or might but has not yet, become" (Insights and Oversights, 203). I assume that what Hartshorne has in mind in allowing that "non-being" can refer to "otherness" is the relative, rather than the absolute, use of "non-being," or "nothing," which has no objective designation. To say, in the relative sense," ~ is not ~" is not to say that x is nothing at all, but that it is another instance or kind than y..