Can science and philosophy explore nothingness?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Capslock, your words:An “Angel with the firery sword” is temporarily blocking the path into the void.
Quantum physics tells of pulsating / vibrating “massless energy” being the component of all; and that his stuff disappears in and out of our existing universe. If so, where does it (we) disappear to? This is where the path is blocked presently

Ray Thomas from the Moody Blues said it long before"Travelling eternity road, what will you find there?
Cosmic space and its expansion?
The sky is actually quite full of unusual things that come and go just below our limit of concious perception…years and years ago when eclipse and comets which were portend, messengers of signals and omens to
the unmodern brain that has not yet split into 2 separate minds, specialized to perform different tasks…
Modern humans as ancient humans have always been fascinated by the sky and above and worked very hard to paint a familiar picture upon the UNKNOWN…
Now how can one should believe that anything is possible ? no matter what is your wildest imaginings about gremlin, fairies, angels or past lives? Because my takes is that the VOID the NOTHINGNESS both tremble with invisible energies…now does that mean that our world allows all of these things to exist?
More than that Science gives us a way to decide between the real objective world and the one we create inside our skulls,
and science savagely destroy any romantic notions by proving that one most cherished thoughts, feelings, and experiences are not based on more than a misfiring neuron, a chemical imbalance or a chance coincidence…The VOID has been found and with it we have discovered the womb of hidden cosmic activity and Creation existing halfway between what is and what might be …
in fact there are no words to describe it as it is a worldless journey to understand the Void and its hidden wonders.

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   I concur. Additionally the next evolutionary step will remove all goblins as the explanation.
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  1. Unity is INDISCERNIBLE if no difference is between unity and nothingness.

  2. Unity is discernible only through the differences between unity and nothingness.

  3. If there is a difference between unity and nothingness, Unity and nothingness will be two different separate things.

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Normally I’d say that yes, coffee would help, but I think you may need to drink a whole pot before you explore nothing just to be able to read the opinions on nothingness

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Stellamonika: You state

You obviously prefer to normalize to unity; instead, I prefer to use the word ‘something’. Also, rather than put double quotation marks around the word ‘nothingness’, viz., “nothingness”, I’ll put it (and similar words) in bold italics, to indicate that we have no experience with such concepts, and therefore, in that sense, the words are meaningless. Then I’d rewrite your first proposition as

1a. Something is INDISCERNIBLE if no difference is between something and nothingness.

Maybe. If (according to the proposition) there’s no difference between something and nothingness, then that something would seem to be the same as nothingness; so, a rewording of the content of your proposition seems to be: nothingness is indiscernible. The purpose of my first response to your original question, however, was to suggest that maybe we’re now able to discern nothingness (through the fleeting “peep-holes” in the negative energy of ‘space’ that we call ‘anti-particles’). If that’s correct, then it suggests to me that your proposition is false.

Your second proposition is:

My rewrite is:

2a. Something is discernible only through the differences between something and nothingness.

Well, maybe I’m missing something (no pun intended), but that proposition seems false. I assume, for example, that people could discern a difference between you and me based on these posts! Yet, maybe I’ve caused a problem by introducing the word ‘something’. Maybe your ‘unity’ is also meant to include the concept of ‘existence’ and your word “nothingness” includes the concept of ‘nonexistence’, so let me try writing your second proposition as

2b. Existence is discernible only through the difference between existence and nonexistence.

But I’m afraid that restatement also causes me difficulty. For example, I discern that I exist by testing the predictions of that hypothesis, e.g., if I exist, I should be able to finish this sentence. It worked! I admit, however, that although I can continue to test that hypothesis and reach the conclusion that I exist with a probability very close to unity, yet some doubt will always remain: I may be a simulation in some giant computer game. But I don’t see how my “discernability” (= identification) would be enhanced through a comparison with nothingness.

Instead of your proposition 2, I’d prefer something closer to the following (with a long introduction to define terms):

There are two types of existences: one is the existence with which we’re familiar (which I’ll call “positive existence” and which consists of various things made from or associated with what we call “positive energy”, including mass) and the other is a “negative existence” of “space” or “the vacuum” (which consists of what we call “negative energy”). For our universe, these two existences are assumed to have been created from the original nothingness (or original zero or original void) via a symmetry-breaking fluctuation in the original void (leading to the Big Bang), expressed mathematically as

2c. 0 = S – S

in which 0 represents the original void, S is something having positive existence (with positive energy) and -S is space.

Your third proposition is:

My rewrite is:

3a. If there is a difference between something and nothingness, they are different.

Well – true – but it seems to be a tautology.

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ZORO:

I reached these conclusions while investigating - WHY DON’T THE LAWS OF NATURE CHANGE?

But, now here I find the energy dimension of nothingness.

Let me put my the last conclusion on unity and nothingness.


4. Unity is discernible only as “part, whole, equivalence, uniqueness, limit, link, influence, sensation, origin, derivative, rule, condition, intent, and fulfillment” through the difference between unity and nothingness.

Anyone can verify these by tabulating the difference between unity and nothingness.
The existence of discernible differences between unity and nothingness implies that NOTHINGNESS ALSO EXISTS. Nothingness is an existence. Nothingness is not nonexistence!

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Stellamonika:

Your fourth proposition

appears to be similar to your second

with the addition of an explanation of your meaning for ‘discernible’. Consequently, my response to your second proposition seems appropriate also for your fourth.

With respect to your final statements

my comments, here, will be brief; I provide details elsewhere (at zenofzero.net/docs/IaAwarenessofIdeas.pdf , starting at the second to last paragraph on page 6 and continuing through most of the rest of the chapter).

In brief, my view is that the entire theory of existence (ontology) should be subsumed as a branch of phenomenology. For example, if you want to know if a brick wall “exists”, then keep banging your head against it until you’re willing to except the “working hypothesis” that it does! Similarly in the case of the hypothesis that nothingness exists, any claim of its existence must be (as far as I’m concerned) supported by data. Consistently, the point of my first response to your original question (starting this thread) is that maybe data on nothingness can be obtained via studies of anti-particles (which apparently are peep-holes in space through which we might be able to gain information about nothingness).

If it’s suggested that an anti-particle, itself (e.g., a positron), is an example of nothingness, I don’t know. If you have a hole in the leg of your trousers, then depending on your viewing angle and other variables, sometimes you see just a rip in your trousers and sometimes you can see what’s “behind the hole” (your leg, a manikin, more cloth, a tailor’s hand, whatever). Consequently, if someone’s goal is to learn more about what’s beneath the rip in your trousers, or about nothingness, it seems that more data are needed. Yet, my guess is that someday humans will find that, “behind it all”, nothingness does exist and that our universe was formed by splitting the original nothingness into the “positive existence” with which we’re familiar and “the negative existence” that we call “space” or “the vacuum”, via 0 = E – E, in which E is the strange stuff that we call “energy”.

But again: 1) data are needed, 2) until we get more data, it’s “just” speculation, and yet 3) I think such speculations are important, since the psychological consequences can be significant. For example, if more people would begin to appreciate more realistic ways that our universe might have been created (besides the silly speculation that some god did it), then I expect that more progress will be made “exterminating the god meme”. Thereby, I think that possibilities for more “peace and prosperity” throughout the world would be enhanced. Such concepts are what compelled me to write my “zen of zero” book (posted and available free at zenofzero.net ), whose purpose is to try to stimulate teenagers (specifically, my own grandchildren, who were immorally subjected to childhood religious indoctrination by their parents) to think about such concepts and to evaluate them.

A major problem, however, whose immensity I didn’t appreciate, is to get teenagers aware of the existence of the book. I certainly don’t have money to pay for an advertising campaign and I don’t want to try to get a publisher involved, since even if I were successful (a dubious assumption), the resulting cost of the book would inhibit its reaching many kids (especially in Islamic countries). Consequently, I seem to be stuck with the option of dropping into forums (such as this one and religious forums, both Christian and Islamic), hoping that, somehow or other, knowledge about the availability of my book will spread to kids. Thereby and consistently, let me add that I would appreciate it if other people who think similarly and who have websites would consider adding links to mine.

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Is it possible to tabulate the differences between unity and nothingness?

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stellamonika: In response to your question

which I’d rewrite as

Is it possible to tabulate the differences between something (or anything) and nothingness?

my response is: Sure, but under the column labeled NOTHINGNESS, besides a relatively useless listing of the negation of everything listed under SOMETHING, what’s left to list?!

That is, we have no data for nothingness – save, perhaps, for the fleeting glimpses that maybe we can see of nothingness through the “peep holes” in space that we call ‘anti-matter’. But to go from such meager data to attempting to describe nothingness would seem to be similar to attempting to describe you (including your thoughts) from observations through a variety of strangely cut holes in your trousers – and they are holes that immediately repair themselves as soon as they come in contact with anything!

It doesn’t leave much to usefully tabulate.