Nothingness

@Doorsopen,

Doorsopen wrote:

And what if I have a different sense of perception; perhaps I can perceive only energy, and not matter. Would I be at all aware of existence, or would all appear to be just a great field of energy without perceivable substance?

... or would energy be your physical "substance", and matter some strange almost imperceptible ether whose bizarre characteristics you can't quite nail down (sometimes it behaves like this; sometimes it behaves like that) but which is somehow magically related to solid energy as demonstrated by Nietsnie's famous equation, M=E/C^2? ... Wink

@paulhanke,

A word, defines an action, thing, or person.

Therefore the word "Nothingness" must define an action, thing, or person.

We all can agree that we know what it is not, so therefore since we all know what it is not, all that is left is what it is, and therefore "nothingness" can be fully understood, due to the fact that we know everything that nothingness is not.

"Nothingness" is very simplistic...

Yet such a simplistic answer dose not 4fill the seekers desire for an answer...

Which tends to make things more complex than they realy are...

@andyhudd,

andyhudd wrote:

"To truly understand nothingness, is to understand everything."

What do you think?

To find nothingness had to be searched from everything,is my perspective,your quote is superlative and right.

@andyhudd,

There is no contradiction. We don't need to understand Nothing. We only need to know that it is not nothing and that it does exist. Under particular circumstance, we can experience Nothing just as much as we can experience Everything. So Nothing is not nothing and Everything is not everything. And therefore Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything.

@andyhudd,

If you will excuse me for inventing some words that are not in the dictionary, because the concepts themselves are not:

I once read the idea that nothingness can equate somethingness or rather everythingness if every component of everythingness has an exactly equal opposite. In that view we ourselves are part of nothingness. Nothingness does not change into something. It already is composed of all the somethings that can ever be. Nothing can not change because it would no longer be nothing.
This canceling out is less implausible than it appears to be at first sight. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may even require our whole universe to have a net energy of zero.
Starting with nothing effectively answers all our questions about the universe. We need no longer postulate a beginning of some kind, because nothingness has and needs no beginning.
We need not explain why we live where we live because our whole universe just happens to be one of the many components of the something which adds up to nothing. It is there because it is a possibility, and within everything all possibilities are by definition realized.

@sarek,

I get such a kick out of this. We keep running into linguistic concepts that are dependent and try to quantify their existence in some sort of objective way.

"Fast" doesn't exist; it's a subjective description of relative movement. Go fetch me a "fast", let's start a thread: Does Fast exist?

"Vice-Versa": Does it exist? Is there a form somewhere if Vice-Versa? "Here, hand me that Vice-Versa will ya?". This term is used to describe the opposing form of reasoning (or cause/effect) between objects, events or conditions; it's subjective and dependent on the ideas involved.

"Time" doesn't exist; it's a description of interval observed between events. "Did you get some time at the store?", "If dinosaurs had no watches, would there be time?". Time is dependent upon events and is descriptive - just a concept.

Let's talk about "Cozy" and postulate the perfect form of Cozy and Not-Cozyness! We see Cozy, therefore must exist in a perfect form that is the exact opposite of Cozyness

Similarly, "Nothingness" is a description of lack or there is not and is dependent upon what there is in dependent conditions. For us to postulate "nothingness" would depend on whatever <something> is involved (or is missing, in this case).

So round and round and round we go. Many of our words are structured to describe dependent conditions; they're necessary, but don't have any existence apart from the contingent elements of which they're concerned. It becomes a semantic merry-go-round, the snake eats itself - starting at his tail - and suddenly POOF! There's nothing... :perplexed:

Of course this is just my opinion, I could be wrong

Thanks

@Khethil,

My language is limited and language cant even describe nothing so what chance have we of understanding nothing..

@andyhudd,

It is indeed a very abstract concept. It's like in QM. If the concept does not bewilder and confuse you you haven't yet understood it.
Trying to think about nothingness, not only in the material sense but also in the senses Khethil described probably leads to the mind hitting a brick wall somewhere along the line.
How do you think about something that 'is not' if you can't even use the word something in the first place?

@sarek,

Yea, exactly.

... it's like the futility of trying to describe a hole completely absent of what's around it. The mind burps... locks up... because it's a dependent concept.

So naturally, lofty-sounding statements like like "everything is nothing" say nothing and only serve to discombobulate reason

Thanks

@andyhudd,

Is "nothingness" different from "nothing"? If not, why would one want to understand nothing?

@ciceronianus,

Wow, I didn't realise I'd triggered such a debate, almost a year ago.

Nothingness and everythingness (that is to say - infinity) are two concepts that certainly appear to be beyond our understanding and in certain contexts, I believe that they are one and the same.

Infinite time ... and no time ... for example.

On one hand, they are antipodal concepts, no time enables a being to just exist, to just "be" ... and infinite time enables constant variation, but with no "end", with no combined result of change. I absolutely fail to grasp infinite time, it is hard to imagine time itself existing, without a beginning or an end. It is hard to imagine a precise moment in (infinite) time, it seems impossible because we cannot measure it up against something else.

As some people have said, we just need to accept that nothingness exists (or rather does not exist), the very concept is a paradox, a circle that we cannot comprehend, but to truly understand this paradox, to understand non-being (as per my initial post) ... would perhaps help us to understand the very opposite - everythingness, being.

We can just about grasp somethingness, but the absolutes cannot be understood, it feels as though it is the very same unattainable concept that makes our existence so very limited and confusing.

@andyhudd,

nothingness,
infinity,

points of reference - we know they exist,
y=1/x

when x is zero, y is infinite, when one pictures the graph,
one places the two points conceptually, to place a point zero,
we make a pixel which points to nothingness on the line x=0
and the pixel at the top of the graph as Y=infinity
but it points to infinity; the pixel of x=0 can only be represented
as a thing, not a nothing

and we all agree we know what these mean,
and yet they do not exist in any actual physical terms -
their origins are metaphysical.

If the mind were merely a physical brain, and thus finite and definite,
how could the mind comprehend something which is not definite (zero)?
how could it comprehend (include) that which is infinite?
something which is not a quality of the world -
not a property of this biological entity called body?

It holds that the comprehension of zero and infinity by mind
shows that some aspect of mind is not of this physical world
mind is metaphysical

@Poseidon,

Poseidon;77053 wrote:

nothingness,
infinity,

points of reference - we know they exist,
y=1/x

when x is zero, y is infinite, when one pictures the graph,
one places the two points conceptually, to place a point zero,
we make a pixel which points to nothingness on the line x=0
and the pixel at the top of the graph as Y=infinity
but it points to infinity; the pixel of x=0 can only be represented
as a thing, not a nothing

and we all agree we know what these mean,
and yet they do not exist in any actual physical terms -
their origins are metaphysical.

If the mind were merely a physical brain, and thus finite and definite,
how could the mind comprehend something which is not definite (zero)?
how could it comprehend (include) that which is infinite?
something which is not a quality of the world -
not a property of this biological entity called body?

It holds that the comprehension of zero and infinity by mind
shows that some aspect of mind is not of this physical world
mind is metaphysical

I think im capable of comprehending the ignorance that tries to measure both of them.In reality nothing and infinity are as close as brother and sister as we pass nothing it becomes infinite.

@andyhudd,

andyhudd;26075 wrote:

On the topic of nothingness, a concept so great, that it seems almost impossible for us to ever really understand, I've come up with a theory/quote, that I thought I'd share.

"To truly understand nothingness, is to understand everything."

What do you think?

Do you consider nothingness and everything to be respective dualisms?

@transcendental,

transcendental;77098 wrote:

Do you consider nothingness and everything to be respective dualisms?

as you cant measure them or imagine them, its a good bet they might be the same.

@xris,

xris;77203 wrote:

as you cant measure them or imagine them, its a good bet they might be the same.

I wonder how you think we'll find out whether they are the same or not.
"Nothing is everything", and, "Everything is nothing" seem to make the same sense.

@andyhudd,

you're looking for the philosophical equivalent of a sound-byte.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;77385 wrote:

you're looking for the philosophical equivalent of a sound-byte.

I think we are just pondering on the unknowable.When all we ever have is the here and now, trying go beyond that experience is just speculation.There is nothing between us and infinity, infinity is less than a second away.You cant measure the distance, its no time, its nothing.

@xris,

xris;77388 wrote:

I think we are just pondering on the unknowable.When all we ever have is the here and now, trying go beyond that experience is just speculation.There is nothing between us and infinity, infinity is less than a second away.You cant measure the distance, its no time, its nothing.

But we have had experience of the past, and our present experience can help us to predict the future. So, it is not true that all we ever have is the here and now.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;77394 wrote:

But we have had experience of the past, and our present experience can help us to predict the future. So, it is not true that all we ever have is the here and now.

memory is not a measurement and expectation has no value.Experiencing time is only ever now,it may appear to go fast or slow but it does not distinguish the moment.We can never recapture that moment, it is as allusive as the notion of infinity,do you have more than now?

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