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Thelema

Is there something rather than nothing?

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Well Heidegger used to say that the fundamental problem of philosophy was

"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

I am honestly beginning to believe that their may actually be nothing. Seriously.

"Is there something rather than nothing?" Is thus an even prior question to Heidegger's question and it provokes and demands some real thought.

Or does it?

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I have a similar thought often. seems to me due to the absurd nature of speculating on things i can not possibly measure, perceive or imagine, relative to my own existence (or, non existence), there is nothing. if you can't measure something reliably in any imaginable way, what possible affect can it have on my life? isn't asserting that something (anything) exists even though i can't even imagine it no different to Islam , perpetual motion or the 'Philadelphia experiment'? personally, i would rather improve my knowledge of the things i can measure and even improve them than be hung up on such ideas, but, alas, i can't seem to cease pondering...

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The implications of quantum theory (your computer operates on "the electron tunneling effect", which is a quantum phenomenon) are that it is virtually certain.

"It has long been accepted that time flows in a linear manner, from beginning, to end.

There is another way of understanding it, however, which is from the point of view as the experience of time being changes in probability states, as "actualisation", or what in quantum physics is termed "the collapse of the wave function".

You may well be aware of how movies operate, projecting around 24 frames per second in a certain order, to simulate the appearance of movement. It appears seamless to us, except at times when some things, like the spokes of a wagon wheel, or the blades of a fan are rotating at similar speeds, or close to multiples of it. There are some movies and books with different pathways / alternate endings, and reality may well be exactly the same.

The universe may be considered as a series of probability states, each slightly different than the other.

As changes occur in those probability states, we perceive the occurrence of events, experienced through the never ending "now" moment, in a similar manner to how someone watching a movie perceives the flashing of many frames of still projections of pictures as motion, when no such actual motion is involved.

From our point of view, the first probability state was the so called "big bang", or singularity which occurred around 13.7 billion years ago.

A change took place in that initial state, in what, had we been there, we would have noted as occurring in less than one attosecond, over an immeasurably small distance.

Another change took place, and another, and so on, until here you are now, following an almost infinite number of such changes, each occurring over smallest possible unit of distance, along that particular series of probability states leading to your particular "here" and "now".

One of the implications of the above is that there is no real death; those "frames" continue to exist/always will exist; always have existed, even the "future" exists right now. It is the "playing", or "projecting" of those frames, or probability states being actualised in accordance with quantum physics that we experience as living our lives.

Moreover, each time we make a decision, or any probability based quantum event takes place, the universe splits; one path leading on to the decision you made, and executed, and the other to an alternate, equally valid universe which we are now and forevermore incapable of perceiving".

http://a-dogs-breakfast.8m.com/blank_5.html

Edited by CLICKHEREx
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If time could be seen as a closed loop then in fact there would be nothing.

The "now' we experience has been and will be repeated an infinite number of times.

In this sense, an internal nothing - not an externally referenced nothing...

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Is the universe conscious? Did organic consciousness form so the universe as a whole to become more self aware, that is experience itself objectively rather than subjectively. Did an inquisitive universe generate consciousness?

I think there is something in that.

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I think in terms of nothing vs everything

rather than nothing vs something.... and i think there's both

but i suppose as long as there is something

then there is math and science to study and measure it with

and then there might be a whole universe of things

that math and science of this universe can never apply to,

and thus we perceive that as nothing because we can't measure it...

but perhaps, just way too large or way to small to be calculated in human terms

then again it could all turn into charred ashes in a blink

but even that is something

yeah so long as some form of life is pondering these things

then thats some thing and each thing has dimensions,

at least two, one in the everything world, the other in the nothing world

thats a hypothesis anyhow, well sorta

maybe there's only source energy... and everything else, a reflection...

in other words, all the things are a perceived representation of what

they really are, but the pereception itself fits conveniently within our limits of perception...

and thus exists an enormous material world we built subconsciously in the

search for comfort and security.... and this world for many, becomes

nothing in a flash, the moment the perceiver discovers what is real....

err wait does realness throw a wrench into my theory?

hell I dunno

Edited by Spine Collector
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if you're thinking there is nothing you would be denying existence, denying life, denying creativity... personally I try to affirm these somethings..

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zero must equal 100%

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In terms of frequency there is actually "

(I believe) a nothing.

For instance we see on our particular frequency, hear on another. Bee's see in an ultra violet frequency.

I think its possible that the substrate of organic material could be viewed as just proton, neutron & electron if a specific organism formed to do so.

As far a veiwing on frequency goes i would suggest there is a frequency where all phyisical matter is transparent...

Hows that sit with y'all.

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By the way zero can equal 1positive negative. Witch inturn can multiply into muliple positive negatives and remain the initial 100%

Cant find emoticons but wanted to use the one poking his tongue out. Lol.

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By the way if you sit on a plastic outdoor setting and the chair leg breaks and you soften your fall by way of breaking your arm bone in two. Then visit a doc n have it casted in plaster so you can wright stupid shit all over it.... only to have it removed a few weeks later... that smell is awfully real.

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non-existence is the vessel i guess. it's brimming with potential, i think it just needs to go AHHHHH and ejaculate the most sublime forms into existence. well, it's the birthplace of existence which to me does colour it as being "more real", but really i guess they're just inextricably linked. to me non-existence spontaneously forays into manifestations. for it to remain as fully-realised non-existence, a homogenous void with no perturbations, is too much of a fabrication. reality wants to shake it. it needs to be. it's just like that, there are no limits so, so there are no limits. "smoke em if you got em" said the void, in reference to it's habit of going bananas because it can.

is the texture of existence shaped by the distribution of stuff, or the distribution of emptiness around that stuff? remember, even your body and the densest matter you see before you is composed of almost 100% void. from this point of view, non-existence gives rise to the universe as we know it through the most miniscule transformation.

but it's all you baby! whether zero or one, or probably actually a combination of both.

does void have a structure/geometry? or maybe existence prefers to manifest according to some structure?

i recommend have numerous inspirations for this sort of pondering, that is, hear out theologians, mystics, hippies, physicists and cosmologists, but not just the mainstream scientists!! not that any particular flavour of dissident science has won me over, but i'm comfortable in a cloud of competing ideas and the popular answers are just a bit too cosy i reckon, and anyway, there's not much to gain by coming along and saying "ahh yes, here is the answer here, as they say. as the dead prophets say."

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As others have aluded to above, our consciousness and perception of the world is evidence enough that there is not nothing. That there is something rather than nothing really is some sort of miracle: why should there be anything when nothingness is so seemingly easy to maintain?

Maybe then there is both nothing (non-existence, the mother or empty plenum from which the universe emerged) and something (the dimensions of existence that grew from the primordial event). These emerging dimensions must be coupled in such a way that means their sum also results in nothing, otherwise there is the conundrum of where the seed for the somethingness came from in the first place.

I think organic life is just one manifestation of a more versatile and much stranger force in the universe that abhors emptiness and seeks to fill it with a teeming multiplicity of creativity and beauty. This force is what drove the smooth nothingness to split into a set of richly textured dimensions.

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After visiting the dentist a few days ago, and having n02 (which I believe believe now was at too-high levels compared to the oxygen inflow - though I'm completely recreationally n02 naive), I've been pondering this question in a different light to previously. When it first hit me I was thinking "wheeeeeee!!" then I started feeling psychologically and philosophically uneasy. A buzzing started which became somewhat digitised and reminded me a lot of chang and crystal Dee, it subsided shortly and then I had to close my eyes... Inside was utter Void. This was a place I'd never been. There was absolute Void of anything other than my thoughts which in a simultaneously Egoic and Cosmically-Unified way, sounded the exact same as I always think. I can't say "nothing" because although there were no symbols, no colour, no background colour (as you'd see brightness behind your closed eyelids), no shapes; and yet the darkness had thickness, and felt keenly like it was substance itself. I kept reminding myself to bear witness and observe so that I could share this experience with my class. Our current module is about Spiritual Crisis (to nutshell: dissociation compared to fragmentation). I think the experience would've got a lot deeper if I hadn't had to also be aware and keep my mouth open. Time dilation was quite extreme and I had seemingly hundreds of internal dialogues during a short period of time. When the dentist finished I definitely didn't feel right, even after straight oxygen was given. I felt queasy on all levels besides the thinking voice. It was only through keeping the Witness mentality that kept me from bugging out. This lasted until the end of the day.

I don't know how much of the effects were from n02, and how much was from oxygen deprivation. I deliberately haven't yet looked to see how this physiological response might occur. I did however look up some dissociative effects from n02, because it was sooo different from DXM dissociation. I ended up reading up about the Buddhist concept of Sunyata . As far as I understand (and I could very well be wrong, please correct) this concept is basically the idea that form/reality/substance is both with and without meaning.

Candrakīrti states:

 

Since
is not objectively created, those who, through this reasoning, accept dependent things as resembling the moon in water and reflections in a mirror, understand them as neither objectively true nor false. Therefore, those who think thus regarding dependent things realize that what is dependently arisen cannot be substantially existent, since what is like a reflection is not real. If it were real, that would entail the absurdity that its transformation would be impossible. Yet neither is it unreal, since it manifests as real within the world.

 

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form
Emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness
Whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form.

If the question was about Something v Nothing in respect to life after death. Personally I think there's just far too much valid "proof" of LAD, given the pan-cultural/social/historical sameness of Near Death Experiences; and also the sameness of Life Between Lives accounts via regression hypnosis.

------

I just came across a definition of "psychonautics" (via a completely different context of this post quite aptly, apropos of not-nothing ;-) )

Psychologist Dr. Elliot Cohen of Leeds Metropolitan University and the UK Institute of Psychosomanautics defines psychonautics as "the means to study and explore consciousness (including the unconscious) and altered states of consciousness; it rests on the realization that to study consciousness is to transform it".

Only last week I had to briefly explain to the class what a "psychonaut" is; given States of Consciousness are so important in this course I'm incredibly surprised even the facilitator thought I'd come up with the term (unless he was covering his ass) Synchronicity strikes again.

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I wish I understood the question. The closest I can can determine it to be: Is there 'life' or consciousness after death? It seems highly unlikely to me.

But does it matter? Well it didn't bother me that I "don't know where I was before I was born" so why should it be a concern once i'm dead? I doubt I was conscious of any void and managed to forget it at birth.

As long as I've lived my life honorably and compassionately - then this will be the legacy I leave behind - and all that matters. For me, this is the true meaning of karma.

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Why is there anything as opposed to simply nothing at all?

Perhaps in the same vein, I could ask how do I even exist as opposed to not?

Along these lines, perhaps the answer is that something/anything, like myself, anyone else or anything tangible, exists because we/it 'occurred' as a result of some other things, like our parents, or going back to the very 'beginning' of everything as we know it, the big-bang + gravity + energy + matter + time.

Further down this path, why wasn't all matter created in the big-bang eliminated by anti-matter, resulting in 'nothing'? This is the baryon asymmetry problem in physics, and is unresolved to this day, modulo some mathematical quibbling.

On the other hand, some might suggest it's because God made it so, end of discussion!

God-Cooking_Gary-Larson.jpg

Edited by antonsyd

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yes

its a paradox....there is obviously something, which implies there must be nothing......otherwise how else could something exist?

Edited by Dreamwalker

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It is like the yin and yang, there's must be one to be the other. An underlying duality... oneness.

You don't know day is without night, what external is without internal, what something is without nothing, what a good looking healthy guy looks like without my ugly chubby ass. etc.

I think it is important and interesting to ask what's happening and how it's happening rather than why, which to me is a meaningless question.

Soup~

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Nothing cannot be

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