Lawrence Crocker wrote:What must something have to count as a something?
I should admit i don’t understand your question.
Where and when is it?
It would totally break the certainty to answer these questions, where assume space, and when assume time.
in "there is something", you don’t have to assume space, nor time.
"not empty universe here now"
This proposition is a lot less certain, you have to assume:
- The category of all things that exists (the universe), is meaningful.
- There is a "here".
- There is a "now", surely assuming there is time.
"there is something", assume a lot less.
You could have something without time, and without space, and without thought, and without any concept you could think of.
And if you have time, or a "now", or a "here", you have something.
"there is something", is certain, because "something" is the ultimate abstraction, it is the vagueness that give the certainty, not the vagueness of the meaning of the sentence, but the vagueness of what the meaning refer in the reality.