# Nothingness



## tween_the_banks (Jan 9, 2013)

Nothingness, or the harder to tackle, Nothing, first entered my mind as a child while sprawled out on a trampoline looking up at the stars. In those days I was going to a southern Baptist church with my mom and dad. Given the religious teachings I then took for truth, the question came to me from a different angle. I imagined the Christian god. No, he was not shirtless with a long white beard, nor did he appear to look anything like the crucifixion paintings which troubled me in my youth. Rather, he was somewhat of a formless mist. This formless mist pulsed and seemed alone with power. I then looked around the strange lonely figure but there was nothing to see. I asked myself, what is nothing? And from where did this mist arrive from. Whether the whippoorwill laments or the howling dogs down the street nudged my leave, I concluded such questions were best left in the hands of faith. Even at my young age the answer seemed to have no foreseeable end.
My question has returned to me with vengeance. I took to the book store. "Surely a few much smarter than myself have tackled this seemingly innocent question." I came across WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST by Jim Holt and my mind has surely endured foundation fractures having bought and read from it.
So here I am throwing my findings to you intelligent and clever folks. I am not finished with the book, only a mere 80 pages in. I don't feel there will be a conclusion when I have finished, but what a conversation there is to be had here.

"If nothing can appear to a person, that means it is something. That's where the trouble begins." -S

Regarding being "an embroidery on the canvas of the void. At the very instant that my consciousness is extinguished another consciousness lights up - or rather it was already alight; it had arisen the instant before, in order to witness the extinction of the first." - Henri Bergson

"Nothing is, but what is not." -Macbeth

I look forward to the feedback, even if there is nothing to find.


----------



## pnome (Jan 9, 2013)

So, why is there something and not nothing?


----------



## Four (Jan 9, 2013)

Nothing is just a concept, the absence of something, or absence of anything.

It is funny that to think of something, you have to use "something" to represent the nothingness.

Most of the time the word isn't used to talk about true nothingness, but just the absence of something specific.

For instance, you might ask your significant other "what's in the bag?" and he or she might reply "nothing"

In that situation nothing represents a lack of something specific, not true nothingness. 

The same can be said of the word empty.


----------



## tween_the_banks (Jan 9, 2013)

pnome said:


> So, why is there something and not nothing?



This is actually the thesis of the book.


----------



## pnome (Jan 9, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> This is actually the thesis of the book.



It's been the thesis of many books.


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 9, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> This is actually the thesis of the book.



And the basic logic for believing in an original cause.  Otherwise, nothing never was.


----------



## ambush80 (Jan 9, 2013)

_There is a singularity that always was and always will be.  It had no intent or will.  From it God was formed in a random act; the one (for now) of many failed permutations of a supreme being that just so happened to stick.  Then God became bored and made everything else..... _ 

Should I continue and organize my imaginings into verse form?


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 9, 2013)

ambush80 said:


> Should I continue and organize my imaginings into verse form?



Sure!



I'm enjoying this thread.  It's an intersting exercise.....because "nothing" never could be, regardless fo who is right or wrong on the "god" question.


----------



## gordon 2 (Jan 9, 2013)

Ok. The answer and the conclusion is, "What is conciousness?"  I know it is another question.  Yet, it is something and not nothing. What exactly it is is not exact really. However as a christian I like to believe that conciousness, that which is percieved , as an example, in the seemingly empty and  yet the vastness of space is spirit. The thing, the object, that is this "nameless something" and "not nothing" is the human spirit, mankind itself. This is its name: man.

Now conciousness created itself, like a tree creates a forest or as the roots create the branches of a tree and the branches the roots, as an example.

We can all play at where the devine comes into this, or did not, like the first time sound registered to the tympanic membrane. I sense the devine, an object, did and does, as opposed to did and does not. This is my forest, my tree, my eardrum...and in this I am not alone. Yet,to each his/her own.

The conclusion is conciousness or human spirit and for moi, it includes the Holy Spirit, the creator of man and spiritual man.

Also, it takes practice to see. Some of you have surely pointed to the deer yonder to a new hunter...who often retorts... I see nothing. It takes time and some learning to see what was previously nothing is indeed the nose and the eye of a twelve point 168 score buck. Same thing with spirit, it takes time to see them...often even in a stalk, ---we walk right by them.


----------



## Ronnie T (Jan 9, 2013)

Four said:


> Nothing is just a concept, the absence of something, or absence of anything.
> 
> It is funny that to think of something, you have to use "something" to represent the nothingness.
> 
> ...



There was H2O in the bag wasn't there?
.


----------



## Oconostota (Jan 10, 2013)

Four said:


> Nothing is just a concept, the absence of something, or absence of anything.
> 
> It is funny that to think of something, you have to use "something" to represent the nothingness.
> 
> ...



Yep - cold is simply the absence of heat.  You CANNOT add cold to something - you can only take away heat.

Same with a vacuum.  Merely the absence of something.  Like with cold, you cannot add vacuum to anything - you can only take away what is (or was) there.

And unless you subscribe to circular logic, you will know that, "If a God did not exist, mankind would create one).

Seeing what is not there is the same as seeing what is there.  It's just a "numbers game" - really.


----------



## TripleXBullies (Jan 10, 2013)

"If a god did not exist, mankind would create one."

I think I've heard that before. Might be a good thread.


----------



## Four (Jan 10, 2013)

The one i usually say is "the god of triangles has three sides"


----------



## gordon 2 (Jan 10, 2013)

Cleverness is not a sub for wisdom.


----------



## Four (Jan 10, 2013)

gordon 2 said:


> Cleverness is not a sub for wisdom.



vica verca


----------



## tween_the_banks (Jan 10, 2013)

OK, another interesting question proposed by this book.
Is thinkability a reliable test for possibility?
Philosopher's fallacy- a tendency to mistake a failure of the imagination for an insight into the way reality has to be. "I can't imagine it otherwise, therefore it must be so."


----------



## Four (Jan 10, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> OK, another interesting question proposed by this book.
> Is thinkability a reliable test for possibility?
> Philosopher's fallacy- a tendency to mistake a failure of the imagination for an insight into the way reality has to be. "I can't imagine it otherwise, therefore it must be so."



Certainly not.... 

Who refers to this as a philosopher's fallacy? A large part of philosophy is studying logic and fallacies like this and being able to identify them. A poor philosopher that succumbs to this poor argument.


----------



## tween_the_banks (Jan 10, 2013)

Those are not my own thoughts. I'm just going to post snippets from the book to keep the fire kindled.
This snippet was referring to Immanuel Kant finding Einstein's relativity theory (curved four-dimensional space time manifold) unimaginable thus ruling it out on philosophical grounds.


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 10, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> Is thinkability a reliable test for possibility?



I might be missing something here.  Can't possibilities be logically elliminated?

For instance, the question on nothing.  Doesn't logic indicate that something always had to be, either an OC or everything?


----------



## Four (Jan 10, 2013)

JB0704 said:


> I might be missing something here.  Can't possibilities be logically elliminated?



Possibilities can be logically eliminated. But you don't eliminate them because its unimaginable, necessarily.



JB0704 said:


> For instance, the question on nothing.  Doesn't logic indicate that something always had to be, either an OC or everything?



Naturally it depends on the logic systems, and axioms/premises.


----------



## gordon 2 (Jan 10, 2013)

Four said:


> vica verca


LOL


----------



## tween_the_banks (Jan 10, 2013)

Could a problem exceed our language, thus exceeding comprehension?


----------



## stringmusic (Jan 10, 2013)

What can Oconostota post on GON now?........ nothingness.


----------



## tween_the_banks (Jan 10, 2013)

stringmusic said:


> What can Oconostota post on GON now?........ nothingness.


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 10, 2013)

stringmusic said:


> What can Oconostota post on GON now?........ nothingness.





I must have missed something......


----------



## TripleXBullies (Jan 10, 2013)

Four said:


> Possibilities can be logically eliminated. But you don't eliminate them because its unimaginable, necessarily.
> 
> 
> 
> Naturally it depends on the logic systems, and axioms/premises.



Agreed. Logic is based on imagining scenarios. If you can't imagine it, you eliminate it's possibility logically. 

I think this means that thinkability is NOT a valid test for possibility.


----------



## stringmusic (Jan 10, 2013)

JB0704 said:


> I must have missed something......



He done got himself banned. May not have been in here though.


----------



## Four (Jan 10, 2013)

stringmusic said:


> He done got himself banned. May not have been in here though.



Bummer.


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 10, 2013)

stringmusic said:


> He done got himself banned. May not have been in here though.



I somehow always miss the posts that get folks banned.

Usually you can tell who won't last much longer, but he came across as reasonable.


----------



## stringmusic (Jan 10, 2013)

JB0704 said:


> I somehow always miss the posts that get folks banned.
> 
> Usually you can tell who won't last much longer, but he came across as reasonable.



I think the bannings usually go down via PM's. Most crazy posts get deleted pretty quick.


----------



## stringmusic (Jan 10, 2013)

Dang, I've been looking for a certian video since you posted this thread and I can't seem to find it. I've even posted it in here before but can't remember which thread. It was a great video about "nothing" and how there are two types of nothing. Very interesting. If I stumple across it, I'll post it up.


----------



## gemcgrew (Jan 10, 2013)

stringmusic said:


> Dang, I've been looking for a certian video since you posted this thread and I can't seem to find it. I've even posted it in here before but can't remember which thread. It was a great video about "nothing" and how there are two types of nothing. Very interesting. If I stumple across it, I'll post it up.



Thanks for nothing.


----------



## stringmusic (Jan 10, 2013)

gemcgrew said:


> Thanks for nothing.





I just spit a lil' on my screen......


----------



## ted_BSR (Jan 11, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> Nothingness, or the harder to tackle, Nothing, first entered my mind as a child while sprawled out on a trampoline looking up at the stars. In those days I was going to a southern Baptist church with my mom and dad. Given the religious teachings I then took for truth, the question came to me from a different angle. I imagined the Christian god. No, he was not shirtless with a long white beard, nor did he appear to look anything like the crucifixion paintings which troubled me in my youth. Rather, he was somewhat of a formless mist. This formless mist pulsed and seemed alone with power. I then looked around the strange lonely figure but there was nothing to see. I asked myself, what is nothing? And from where did this mist arrive from. Whether the whippoorwill laments or the howling dogs down the street nudged my leave, I concluded such questions were best left in the hands of faith. Even at my young age the answer seemed to have no foreseeable end.
> My question has returned to me with vengeance. I took to the book store. "Surely a few much smarter than myself have tackled this seemingly innocent question." I came across WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST by Jim Holt and my mind has surely endured foundation fractures having bought and read from it.
> So here I am throwing my findings to you intelligent and clever folks. I am not finished with the book, only a mere 80 pages in. I don't feel there will be a conclusion when I have finished, but what a conversation there is to be had here.
> 
> ...



You should read some Descartes.


----------



## ted_BSR (Jan 11, 2013)

tween_the_banks said:


> Could a problem exceed our language, thus exceeding comprehension?



Yes


----------



## TripleXBullies (Jan 11, 2013)

I agree.. So why try to talk about it?


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 11, 2013)

TripleXBullies said:


> I agree.. So why try to talk about it?



It's an intersting mental exercise.


----------



## TripleXBullies (Jan 11, 2013)

I guess I'm taking an agnostic point of view. His ways are not our ways... because if there is something there it exceeds our language and comprehension. So why talk about about it and attempt to comprehend that which exceeds our language and exceeds our comprehension.


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 11, 2013)

TripleXBullies said:


> I guess I'm taking an agnostic point of view.



That changes everything, really.



TripleXBullies said:


> His ways are not our ways...



If God exists, and I believe he does, then I can't imagine not accepting such a fact.  That's where it gets tricky.  To be a Christian, you have to also accept the Bible as a "message" of sorts to aid in understanding.  So, there's two parts to it.



TripleXBullies said:


> So why talk about about it and attempt to comprehend that which exceeds our language and exceeds our comprehension.



For me, it assists in my faith.  The more tunnels I investigate, the more convinced I am that there is a creator.  This exercise in "nothing" is kind-of where my faith is grounded.  There never could be nothing.  If there was, then everything spontanteously generated from nothing.  Or, everything always was.  Given the complexity of our universe, I would be hesitant to conclude that every element and molecule is it's own OC.

That's why I talk about it, because it helps me embrace my faith.  My Christianity is another story, however.  I cannot give you or anybody a logical reason for why I am a Christian.  I can explain what I accept on faith (the gospel), but I can't prove it to you.


----------



## TripleXBullies (Jan 11, 2013)

There is a message that aids in the understanding of something that is beyond our comprehension?


----------



## JB0704 (Jan 11, 2013)

TripleXBullies said:


> There is a message that aids in the understanding of something that is beyond our comprehension?



Sure.  John 3:16 for those who take the gospel on faith.


----------



## shane256 (Jan 11, 2013)

Four said:


> Nothing is just a concept, the absence of something, or absence of anything.
> 
> It is funny that to think of something, you have to use "something" to represent the nothingness.
> 
> ...



Yup. That's why the invention of "zero" (the concept of none) is considered by some to be one of our great inventions.


----------

