|
18 jun 06 "is nothing something?" i'll rephrase before i attempt an answer: "what is nothing?" if you think about it, this is the same question, but honed down a bit. focus on the word "is" -- does nothing exist? to exist is to be something. is nothing something? nothing, or "no thing," is a concept like 0 or infinity -- not something that we're able to physically contemplate. the best thing we can hope for is to do it with language or mathematics, which turns out to be the kicker: by using it there, we call it into existence. the closest thing we have to a physical nothing is the "vacuum of space" -- the space between atoms and free particles. but notice that i put this in quotes -- i referred to "it." signifing a referrent calls it into existence, if only conceptually. once we call nothing "nothing," it becomes something. and, even if i didn't refer to it, any space we know of is rife with gravity, 4-dimensional spacetime and probably some other weird stuff they've been bantying about for the past 50 years or so. what "is" nothing? the verb "to be" is (irony, thick) inherently dogmatic, and is concerned with naming rather than describing -- it's unscientific, and frankly, simple-minded. of course, there's ambiguity -- when you describe something, you have to use words. every word is in fact a stereotype, and a name. for instance: "what is a window?" "a window is a wooden frame containing panes of glass, which can often open to the outside world in order to let in the fresh air." "what is wood?" "wood is a rigid cellular structure formed by some plants for protection from nature's elements, which is sometimes made into window frames." etc. it's similar to a little kid who keeps on asking "why?", ad infinitum. this is a very smart thing to do. all we can do is to delve sufficiently deep into our analysis of a thing so as to avoid describing it improperly, and shortcutting with names. names don't have meaning. description, which paradoxically consists of names, does. so, the answer is: depends on how you define both "something" and "nothing." [something - presence of matter, energy, time, space, gravity, etc] [nothing - absence of any of these] "nothing" is an impossibility in the universe as we know it, and exists only as a mathematical and philosophical conceptual tool -- as a thought-of thing; it exists as text, but not outside of human consciousness (even though the universe may very well exist solely inside human consciousness, which complicates things). maybe in a black hole or something, there is nothing. but as far as we know, nothing is not something. [something, nothing - fruity concepts] since we signifiy the referrent with "nothing," we call it into existence. nothing is a thing, because we talk and think about it. nothing is something. is nothing a thing? in language, yes. in the physical world, no. that's my reductionist answer, take it or leave it. i foil your koans at will, puny human. caveat: if the universe is equal to consciousness, then yes -- nothing is always something, whether it's "real" or "text". but i wouldn't bet on it. |
ask a question