rongreen5 wrote:R. Lebeaux, I like the opening of your novel. As fiction, it's cute. As a basis for a discussion on Nothing, it is very problematic; but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be interested to continue reading.

Oh, hell, I knew that. I wasn't trying to add to the discussion, really; it's just that what Interbane said struck me as so close you my own words, I felt the need to post it. Sorry if it bothered you .

rongreen5 wrote:One not significant point: zero is not Nothing.

That's correct, and it's why I said "when denoted as zero." The concept of zero is far more complex than a simple digit, particularly when it comes to theoretical mathematics.

rongreen5 wrote:I agree with you, Tat, that the nothingness of Eastern faiths is something.

That is interesting. Why do you say that? The Tao Te Ching is a major source for Eastern views about nothing. For example:
We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not. (chap. 11, tr. Waley)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching#Emptiness

Robert, it is not my fault that you did not understand my statement "We cannot imagine a universe in which we are not present, which is why we cannot grasp the concept of Nothing (the absence of everything)", and that it took another two times for you to understand what I meant.

Ron, sorry to be repetitive, but my concern, which you may note was shared by others, was that your original statement was not true, and it was only when you changed your statement that you clarified your meaning. We can in fact imagine a universe in which we are not present, and pedantic and irritating as it may be, it is valuable to have some logical precision in the discussion.

And, yes, I have a theory of Nothing. I agree that the concept of Nothing is entirely meaningless. I have explained why that is so, and I hope you don't want me to go through it a fourth time. You do, though, insist that I summarise 248 pages into a few lines in this forum. If I could do that, I would have saved myself all those pages. From what you write, I am now waiting for you to ask whether Nothing exists. I would hope, though, that before you get into that, you will realise what my answer would be. I'm amused - but not surprised - that you consider a discussion of Nothing to be light and inconsequential.

I'm sorry you did not see the Bogartian irony in my comment that nothing is a light topic. I actually think nothing is of the highest consequence. That is why I started this thread, which originally had the title Nothing, but Chris found this too disturbing and changed it. As you would recall, I referred you to this thread from your introduction of your book, where nothing has been said since my comment.

To repeat from your thread,

I wrote:Hi Ron, welcome, thanks. I have long been fascinated by nothing, since reading Heidegger's analysis of nothing in his An Introduction to Metaphysics. I talk about nothing at http://rtulip.net/yahoo_site_admin/asse ... 191058.pdf and http://rtulip.net/yahoo_site_admin/asse ... 191138.pdf

Carlos Castaneda's concept of the nagual seems like nothing to me.

We discussed nothing in American Gods at a thread on whether nothing is sacred, which I hope you will be interested to read.

http://www.booktalk.org/is-nothing-sacred-t6422.html

There are few more interesting semantic logic puzzles than whether we can make any sense of nothing.

All this illustrates that nothing can be said about nothing, and the paradox that to talk of nothing makes nothing into something. This illustrates Tat's point about metaphor and God, that as soon as we attempt to capture the beyond in language, we distort and misunderstand it, rather like the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. This is highly relevant to the thread topic, Is Nothing Sacred?. If we say God is nothing, in the sense that God is not an entity, we enter an atheist mindspace, but one that opens us to the mystery of existence and our relation to nature, reality and the sacred.

Another thread that discusses related themes, especially negative theology, is http://www.booktalk.org/the-case-for-god-t8001.html

A fine essay about the great debate on nothing between Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap, whereby science expresses its axiomatic rejection of mythical thinking, is at http://www.hnu.edu.ph/main/publication/ ... 061713.pdf

This reminds me of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, in relation to the liar paradox "this is false". By Carnap's logical positivist standards, all discussion of the paradox is utterly absurd, because it analyses a non-statement. And yet for some reason paradox is regarded as a serious topic in logic, whereas Heidegger is ignored except within the existential humanist traditions. People just don't like what he called the muffled bell of anxiety, with its discomforting sense that we have no answer to big why questions and know that we will become nothing. Yet it is perfectly reasonable to discuss anxiety about non-being in view of the likelihood of human extinction on present trends.

Robert, Sorry to be repetetive, but I stand by my original statement. We CANNOT imagine a universe without humans, since in order to do that we have to be not around in order to do that.

Since you insist on arguing with me without reading what I wrote on the subject, I am finding it tedious to answer every point of yours. So it goes with the issue of Eastern religions. Nothingness (the absence of something) is not Nothing. Tao deals with nothingness, which is something.

You state that "the paradox that to talk of nothing makes nothing into something." You are mixing up the term and the concept. There is no way we can talk about anything without using language. It's all we've got to discuss stuff. You are right, though, that we can't talk about the concept Nothing; the reason is that to touch Nothing in any way would mean that we would not be present. That is Nothing: the absence of everything, including ourselves.

Nothing is not a paradox. A paradox is something. Nothing simply isn't. As hard as that is to comprehend, it is what we have to contend with when we discuss Nothing using the word "nothing."

rongreen5 wrote:Robert, Sorry to be repetetive, but I stand by my original statement. We CANNOT imagine a universe without humans, since in order to do that we have to be not around in order to do that.

Hi Ron, thanks, I hope we are circling closer to the point. Now you have changed your thesis again. This time you say "We CANNOT imagine a universe without humans". But your original claim was that "we cannot imagine a universe in which we are not present". That is quite different, because we can easily imagine a universe in which humans are in the past or the future, but not the present. That was why I asked you if you were talking about an eternal present, which you said you were not.

We can in fact imagine a universe without humans. That is what the theory of multiverses is about, the idea of multiple universes, like soap bubbles in the bath of God. Perhaps what you mean is that we cannot imagine our universe without humans. I would agree with that.

All I am saying is if you want to talk about nothing, at least get your ducks in a row, even if they are nonexistent ducks.

Since you insist on arguing with me without reading what I wrote on the subject, I am finding it tedious to answer every point of yours. So it goes with the issue of Eastern religions. Nothingness (the absence of something) is not Nothing. Tao deals with nothingness, which is something.

You state that "the paradox that to talk of nothing makes nothing into something." You are mixing up the term and the concept. There is no way we can talk about anything without using language. It's all we've got to discuss stuff. You are right, though, that we can't talk about the concept Nothing; the reason is that to touch Nothing in any way would mean that we would not be present. That is Nothing: the absence of everything, including ourselves.

Nothing is not a paradox. A paradox is something. Nothing simply isn't. As hard as that is to comprehend, it is what we have to contend with when we discuss Nothing using the word "nothing."

Specialists know everything about nothing, while generalists know nothing about everything. (At least those are the asymptotic end points of the continuum.) Maybe you are the ultimate specialist?

Heidegger pointed out that the nothing which sits outside logical conversation opens us up to a sense of everything, so has a useful rational purpose in existential ontology. His essay What is Metaphysics? is worth reading.

You haven't convinced me that we can avoid paradox if we wish to talk about nothing. How do you answer when people say the conversation is entirely without content, empty, vacuous, meaningless and absurd? A paradox is not something, it is impossible. Impossible things don't exist. Talking about nothing is a paradox. Even our conversation here is not really about nothing, it is just about how we can talk about nothing. Nothing has an amazing facility to elude all efforts to talk about it.

Tallleyrand said the Bourbons remembered everything and comprehended nothing. It looks like they were expert Taoists.

I will mull over your claim that nothing is the absence of everything.

Robert, I agree that we are circling closer to something. Whether that is Nothing is a moot point. I now have this image of two prize fighters circling closer and closer towards nothing. What will happen when they meet, I wonder.

I understand that my original statement was not understood. That may be my fault, since I am so sure of what I mean that I am surprised when others don't get the same meaning. Regrettably, though, I do not see the difference between "We cannot imagine a universe without humans" and "we cannot imagine a universe in which we are not present". I agree that the first statement lends itself to misunderstanding, but it should have been clear after my later explanation, which is that when we see a universe without humans, it is WE who are doing the seeing. I understand, though, the problem, so I will amend it to the latter statement above.

I accept that I am a specialist on "nothing". That does not mean that I know everything about it. Due to the nature of t6he subject, I feel that I know a lot about "nothingness" (the absence of something) and have theories about Nothing (the absence of everything). I have no idea how much I know about Nothing, since whatever I could know would be countered by the fact of not being able to know about where I am non existent.

Unfortunately, Heidegger does no better with "nothing" than, say, Sartre. Both do not do what I have done: diferentiate betwee the absence of something and the absence of everything. Heidegger's "nothing" to which you refer seems to be "nothingness". That is not good enough, although I do agree that a study of "nothing" (if done properly) opens up interesting possiblilities in existential ontology.

You say that a paradox is not something because it is impossible. I don't accept that. Something that is impossible is not nothing; it is something that is impossible. A paradox is. It may be impossible, but it still exists. If a conversation is meaningless, it is still a conversation - unless you wish to define a conversation as one that has to make sense. Alice had meaningless conversations, didn't she?

If one person finds a conversation meaningless and another person doesn't, would that conversation not be anything?

I agree that "[N]othing has an amazing facility to elude all efforts to talk about it.
But we do talk about it, since we are talking about the word "nothing". The fact that we can't actually do more than use language and not touch upon Nothing is because to do so, we would have to be absent. That is precisely the point.


www.nothing-matters.org

Interesting site Ron:

Does nothing matter? It shouldn’t do. After all, nothing is …well… nothing.
But…if everything started from nothing, so we are told, then nothing must contain the seeds of everything.

How could everything come from nothing?

In fact, how does anything come from nothing?

And if it did, would that mean that nothing is something?

Questions, questions….

That’s what this website is about: questions.

Questions about nothing.

That pretty much summarizes what we've discussed here @ BT so far. The idea of a universe which came from nothing is pretty much out as far as religion goes. It's also pretty much out as far as science goes too because we've experienced the very same problem in that school of thought. The BB likely came as a result from something else previously. It always boils down to something from something which ever way we turn...

So where's nothing?

What's nothing?

The above quote reminds me of "something" I read from the Upanishads where a father is trying to teach his son about the ground of being. Long story short, he points to a great Banyan tree and then analyzes the fruit of the tree with the boy. They see seeds exceedingly small. Then, the father asks the boy to split a seed and the asks the boy what he sees there. The boy replies, "nothing." The father then chimes in and says that which you do not see, from that this great Banyan tree arises. But of course the boy was starring at thin air, which contains properties and so on. It wasn't really "nothing" from which the great banyan tree arises in a literal sense. The point is that existence is grounded in deep mystery. Not that everything including the tree literally came from "nothing" at any point in the history of existence.

The trick to understanding these myths and philosophies is that there has always been a problem when confronting the mystery of mere existence. From where did it arise? When did it arise? There is no fixed answer. There never was and there probably never will be. Myths are addressed to that. And people devised ways of trying to talk about and refer to the mystery of mere existence which is essentially beyond all thinking and therefore beyond what words can describe. Thus ushers in the transcendent doctrines.

Something and Nothing are categories of thought. But the reference is to beyond all categories of thought. It's to that place where thinking shuts down such as when trying to grasp the question of origins and absolute ultimates. And even in science today we have elaborate theories about space without end, multiverses of existence, white holes expelling matter taken in by black holes and causing new universes to come into existence out of the matter sent through a black hole and so on. Everything came from "something" in these newer theories that seek to make sense out of what was previously a paradoxical BB perspective. But even then, the mystery of mere existence is present. It's only "nothing" in the sense that it is no specific thing, but rather the mystery that is the ground of everything. Where did all of the matter that went into a black hole, and came out of a white hole to cause our BB, come from in the first place? Another black / white hole exchange? Perhaps. But the mystery behind the very existence of existence itself is always ultimate. Religion doesn't avoid this either. The mystery of the existence of Brahman or an uncreated creator YHWH is the ultimate factor of those scenarios too.

And so back to "nothing" being considered sacred. It's the mystery, the sense of awe and wonder which is really the sacred factor in the equation. That's how Campbell broke it down anyways. And all of these little plays on words and concepts that hinge around everything coming from nothing are merely aimed at trying to get a person to that experience of deep mystery concerning the ground of their own personal existence and the existence of all they see around them and even within themselves. The mystery of it all unifies everything as one and at the end of the day "nothing" and "nothingness" are place holder terms aimed at an attempt to achieve a type of experience while alive...

We have to die to experience nothing, and, even then we're not experiencing at all so there is no 'experience' of literal nothing or nothingness. Better yet, even while we're dead or before we're born in order to experience the consciousness of what is, the consciousness of something, nonetheless something was always in existence regardless of our observation.

And so does "nothing" matter? If you think so then I wonder why "nothing matters" to you?

Tat, thanks for quoting from my site.

I don't know why you state that "The idea of a universe which came from nothing is pretty out as far as religion goes." In fact, I'm amazed. The fundamental issue of Western monotheistic religions is that God created the universe from nothing. This is THE miracle. Without it, God would be no big deal. If God created the world from something, then one would have to ask who created that material. Creation of the universe from nothing is the basic tenet of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The idea of God creating the universe from hmself - emanation - is a mysticism espoused by certain elements of those religions, and is somewhat frowned upon by the mainstream. Kabbalah, for example, is big on emanence. Even Eastern Orthodox religions, which have a mystical canon and differentiate between two parts of God, still hold on to the basis of Christian credo that God created the world from nothing.

The idea that God created the universe from himself is, of course, closer to the Eastern mystic ideas that lead to pantheism than to the monotheistic tenet of creation ex nihilo.

I agree with you that the Big Bang theory has smilar problems to those of religion when it comes to something coming from nothing.

I also disagree about dying and nothing. We do not experience nothing when we die. Nothing can't be experienced. And, no, something is not in existence for us when we are dead.

www.nothing-matters.org

rongreen5 wrote:Tat, thanks for quoting from my site.

I don't know why you state that "The idea of a universe which came from nothing is pretty out as far as religion goes." In fact, I'm amazed. The fundamental issue of Western monotheistic religions is that God created the universe from nothing. This is THE miracle. Without it, God would be no big deal. If God created the world from something, then one would have to ask who created that material. Creation of the universe from nothing is the basic tenet of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The idea of God creating the universe from hmself - emanation - is a mysticism espoused by certain elements of those religions, and is somewhat frowned upon by the mainstream. Kabbalah, for example, is big on emanence. Even Eastern Orthodox religions, which have a mystical canon and differentiate between two parts of God, still hold on to the basis of Christian credo that God created the world from nothing.

The idea that God created the universe from himself is, of course, closer to the Eastern mystic ideas that lead to pantheism than to the monotheistic tenet of creation ex nihilo.

The mystical answers are in response to the ridiculous and mindless assertions of the orthodoxy. And yes, it does lead to Panentheism and Pantheism the further along one thinks carefully and considers. I'm saying that when broken down and considered very carefully, creation ex nihilo is a creation from something after all, be it creation from God or whatever. The creation from nothing idea is a ploy for the ignorant masses.

I also disagree about dying and nothing. We do not experience nothing when we die. Nothing can't be experienced.

You're agreeing with what I just finished saying as if you disagree with something I didn't even say. Look again:

tat tvam asi wrote:We have to die to experience nothing, and, even then we're not experiencing at all so there is no 'experience' of literal nothing or nothingness.

I was saying that the only way to experience "nothing" is to die, but that's not an 'experience' anyways and so there is no real experience of "nothing" at all in that respect. That means that "nothing" can't be experienced, in short. I typed that fast and it may have been confusing. You also seem to be confused with the next quote as well:

Better yet, even while we're dead or before we're born in order to experience the consciousness of what is, the consciousness of something, nonetheless something was always in existence regardless of our observation.

That is a little confusing too, but all I was trying to say is that before we were born existence was around. "Something" was in existence which then gave rise to a series of somethings, and eventually gave rise to our consciousness at some point in time. There was never a "nothing" or "nothingness" but rather "something" and "somethingness" all along because there was always existence and existence is "something." It doesn't matter whether or not we were aware of that "something" and "somethingness", it was still in existence regardless of our awareness or ability to observe it all.

Now also, after we die, there is still "something" and "somethingness" to consider. Our elements are endlessly 'recycled in nature' and it keeps going, and going, and going regardless of whether or not we are living and conscious in order to observe and experience that which always was and will always be. A dead body may not be conscious, but it's still a "something" that doesn't really go anywhere. It remains in various forms and continues to exist in various ways.

Your response to the quote was this:

And, no, something is not in existence for us when we are dead.

Yes, something is always in existence even before we're born and even after we're dead. Nature / Cosmos / Existence itself has been and will be in existence without coming from "nothing" or returning to "nothing."

But you were more concerned with throwing up strawman objections and what not then you were in taking interest in answering the main question of the post, which is simply what is it about "nothing" that you think "matters" so much Ron?