Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Last year, I read my old copy of From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers
by Georges Ifrah.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in mathematical history.
"Zero", meaning nothing, is only a concept in equations, gradually placed into
common use over hundreds of years. We cannot successfully argue that
nothingness exists, epistomologically, except in equations.
Are there spiritual/religious implications to the point that "something" is
always there ? I'm not speaking only of material decomposition and metamorphosis,
or even more nuanced realities in additional dimensions or etheric forces,
but of the search for universal apogee. Does it ever "end" ?, what would stop
a characteristically altering presence from crossing along miasmas of thinly veiled
thresholds which for us appear like brick walls, but are possibly not separated
at all ?
Even for the non-theist minded philosopher, if there is no nothing, not even
in the "void", except as a convenient mental construct for identification,
does this reassure you in any way ? Perhaps in some way that
you could conceive of "life after death", even without a "God", since
the denial of a diety is your contention ?
Well, nothing isn't just a concept. Not really anyway. For example, there is no sound in space. There reason is because sound only travels when it has particles to bounce off of. Space has such a low density of particles that sound cannot travel, thus there is effectively nothing. Now, you could argue that in terms of particle density, it's not 0 rather .00001 or something. But at what point does such a low density, to the point where it's basically immeasurable, not just become effectively nothing?
As for questions of afterlife, I would say that this doesn't really connect. Afterlife is presumed to be where the soul leaves the body and enters into another space. However, the soul is not made up of matter. There is no empirical evidence to suggest it exists. Some argue that consciousness is the soul, but again, all of our knowledge on it suggests it cannot survive unless the brain is functioning. When the brain decomposes, consciousness is lost. All the matter from the brain still exists, just in different parts, but consciousness is simply lost as it never took up any space. At least, that's the idea.
You could go back to how the universe got here. Most people argue that there has always been something, but the big bang is just a rapid expansion of all the things that can be. Space itself is expanding, according to the theory. Many think that eventually the universe stops expanding or expands too much and collapses in on itself, destroying everything. But matter cannot be created or destroyed, so what actually happens is it just returns to a single point. That single point will eventually collapse to maximum density and expand once more, creating everything again. That's the theory (as I understand it; I'm not a physicist). Sort of sounds like nothing can't exist, but we also don't know what space really is. It does exist, as we have measured it expanding, but it really doesn't make any sense (not to me; again, not a physicist). What is the space around the big bang, for example? Is that nothing? Or is it something and by our universes expansion, it it pushing something aside? This is getting too abstract for me, so I'll just stop there.
The word "nothingness" is self-contradictory and nonsensical. The suffix "-ness" means a quality of something: redness, darkness, hotness, sweetness, etc. Red is something. Dark is something. Hot is something. Sweet is something.
There's no such thing as "nothingness." Try imagining "nothingness." Can you do it? Google "nothingness" and click on the images link. Google can show us the kinds of things people imagine as "nothingness." But of course, everything you see on Google images is something and not nothing.
The word "nothingness" is self-contradictory and nonsensical. The suffix "-ness" means a quality of something: redness, darkness, hotness, sweetness, etc. Red is something. Dark is something. Hot is something. Sweet is something.
There's no such thing as "nothingness." Try imagining "nothingness." Can you do it? Google "nothingness" and click on the images link. Google can show us the kinds of things people imagine as "nothingness." But of course, everything you see on Google images is something and not nothing.
This is true. The absence of "something" (a.k.a nothing) does not exist, except in mathematical theories.
Read it again slowly, breathe deeply, open your mind...
it will come to you.
Made me laugh!!!!!
The Nothingness...must be a hot topic...lots going on on other Forums.
Ok, I say this a lot...if you want to know about a dentist, ask if they have gone to him...
otherwise all you get are opinions, hearsay, guessing, speculations, debates and such.
The Void, the Nothingness is not a concept...It is 'there', here, always was , always will be...
It is timeless, forever...existing as we are existing here...in the manifested creation...it
is the Unmanifest.
That says absolutely nothing to the logical brain! Sorry.
All there is in the 'Nothingness' is You...Pure Awareness of 'You'...as the Only One..
I repeat ...no One else ...No One!!!
And that is why I understand this creation!!! Pretty darn boring.
While the OP doesn't ask a clear question I am assuming that it's a variation on the question "why is there something rather than nothing" and its implied answer "we don't know, therefore god".
The existence of things doesn't legitimately presuppose that there was ever a time when no-things at all existed.
If nothingness / zero is a theoretical construct, a concept only useful mathematically, then the need for nothingness to be populated with something (creation) doesn't exist, nor is a creator needed to explain the current situation.
As to the only real question in the OP, no, I don't take any comfort from the notion that nothing is not a thing ;-) That is just another way of asking if I fear oblivion / annihilation (otherwise why would the absence of oblivion be a comfort?). To which the answer is, no. I do not fear oblivion or non-existence. It didn't trouble me before I was born, and won't trouble me after I die, so I see no reason for it to trouble me while I am alive.
That says absolutely nothing to the logical brain! Sorry.
Apology accepted.
It is easy to forgive you as you don't impose your musings as normative for anyone but yourself.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
