Nullity

[American]

Every so often, I imagine total non-existence. Not of myself, but of the universe. I'm slightly fearful that matter and energy exist. Nothing should exist, and further nothing should exist to understand nothingness.

How I am here seems trivial compared to that idea. With all the "knowledge" and reflection that's possible, I am only able to understand existence and even death. What I can't grasp is the existence of anything. Not even a temporary or eternal symetry whose sum total is zero.

Nothingness should be the only thing. There should be no time or space, only a total void, and not even that because that seems like "something", an idea, which is a structural pattern of brain cells that function. The atoms of those brain cells come from... where? Big bang? Ok. No. I don't get it. Big bang is something. I don't get it.

Nothing upon nothing upon nothing makes sense. How does anything exist?

[Tony]

Lay off the acid dude. :D :p

[American]

Therefore, only illogic exists.

[American]

And with illogic, all things are possible.

[American]

This may be easier if the Illuminati would entrust me with their secrets.


Or did I just give their secret away so much as to accept me?


I'm talking to you, Zombified corpse of Saint Germain. And to you, Thomas Jefferson.

[Underemployed]

Isn't nothingness also everything?

What with zero being infinity after all. Boy did it blow my mind when I realised THAT one!

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by American
How does anything exist?

Absolute nothingness, the absence of space, time, or things does not exist.
It cannot. For nothingness to exist, it must be somewhere, it must be at
sometime, and it must be something. If it did so, it looses perfection, and
transforms into that which it is not. Absolute nothingness, therefore, can
never exist.

But don’t feel bad for it. Even though absolute nothingness does not
exist, in a way it still participates in the greater reality. Look at electrons.
Everywhere electrons exist, even in places where they seem absent they
pop into and out of existence too brief to detect. And yet, when we look
at the universe as a whole, it does not seem negatively charged overall.

Why?

For every electron there exists a proton or other positive charge that
exactly balances out the negative charge of each electron. Even the
virtual electrons popping in and out of existence have virtual antielectrons
popping into and out of existence with them. In this way the universe
has charge within it, yet itself remains uncharged.

In this way existence does not violate nonexistence. Things come into or
out of being not solely by themselves, but with other things. This preserves
the balance. The universe is not nothing, but then again it does not violate
nothing either. It exists without effort.

:D

[American]

Which goes along with my "sum total=0" problem. Ok, for every postitive charge there's a negative one too.


In my view neither should exist. Never, anywhere, ever, no place. So what if they cancel each other, they should both not exist in any way for any moment.


It is illogical. Therefore, illogic is the rule.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I gotta go with American on this one. Why the hell is there anything at all? I'm not talking just empty space, or just quantum vacuum, or even quantumless vacuum. Why was there even the potential for something to exist?

Actually, the first question is: Is there a reason why there is something rather than nothing? Assuming the answer is yes, then the second question is: What is the reason?

~~ Paul

[JAR]

Originally posted by Tony
Lay off the acid dude. :D :p
:D :D :D

[shemp]

If nothing existed, I would be unable to finish this po

[JAR]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Actually, the first question is: Is there a reason why there is something rather than nothing? Assuming the answer is yes, then the second question is: What is the reason?
The reason that there is something rather than nothing is because there has always been something. No matter how far back in time you go, there is always something.

[American]

Originally posted by JAR
The reason that there is something rather than nothing is because there has always been something. No matter how far back in time you go, there is always something.

Yes, but there shouldn't be.

Maybe you're on to something. There must be a flaw in my understanding of time, matter, and space. I'm not in to physics or cosmology, and it's more than simply imagining a lifeless universe. It's more than accepting the 3 or 4 'fundamental forces' as some sort of god. They should not exist.

I can't quite grasp it. It's almost more of a feeling than something I can describe. None of this should have ever been here.

Existence is illogical. Maybe I can accept that. Guess I have to, cause I still got to go to work either way!

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by American
None of this should have ever been here.

Maybe Euler's formula will help.
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/formula3.gif
Each of the terms has a unique nonzero value, yet when put together they equal zero.
Do you see it now?

[Sindai]

Slightly off-topic, but that is the most bizarre equation I've ever seen. My calculator agrees that e ^(i*Pi) equalls -1, but I can't figure out why from what I know about all of those numbers.

[American]

Originally posted by Synchronicity
Maybe Euler's formula will help.
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/formula3.gif
Each of the terms has a unique nonzero value, yet when put together they equal zero.
Do you see it now?

Is that what I concluded, non-mathematically? Is the imaginary number i the only answer and reason stuff exists? Accepting that i is total nonsense, absurd, and illogical?

I almost want to carry it further by saying that i shouldn't exist, but without i maybe that would make existence logical, contrary to the rule that only i makes all things possible and nothing else whatsoever should exist without it.

[ImpyTimpy]

Originally posted by Synchronicity

Absolute nothingness, the absence of space, time, or things does not exist.
It cannot. For nothingness to exist, it must be somewhere, it must be at
sometime, and it must be something. If it did so, it looses perfection, and
transforms into that which it is not. Absolute nothingness, therefore, can
never exist.

You're making a mistake in reasoning here right at the start. Saying for nothingness to exist is already faulty. Nothingness does not exist. Nothingness is lack of existence, therefore nothing is needed to describe nothingness because nothing exists.

<snipped rest>

[c4ts]

Originally posted by American
Every so often, I imagine total non-existence. Not of myself, but of the universe. I'm slightly fearful that matter and energy exist. Nothing should exist, and further nothing should exist to understand nothingness.

How I am here seems trivial compared to that idea. With all the "knowledge" and reflection that's possible, I am only able to understand existence and even death. What I can't grasp is the existence of anything. Not even a temporary or eternal symetry whose sum total is zero.

Nothingness should be the only thing. There should be no time or space, only a total void, and not even that because that seems like "something", an idea, which is a structural pattern of brain cells that function. The atoms of those brain cells come from... where? Big bang? Ok. No. I don't get it. Big bang is something. I don't get it.

Nothing upon nothing upon nothing makes sense. How does anything exist?

I think you are taking something that makes sense and twisting it into nonsense. Here's a very good site for an introduction to Big Bang theory:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html
It's not very comprehensive, but you can run your own Google searches.

Why you say there should be nothing confuses me. I do not understand your reasoning.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Actually, the first question is: Is there a reason why there is something rather than nothing? Assuming the answer is yes, then the second question is: What is the reason?
The universe exists because it can. What's to prevent it? It would be stranger if the universe could exist, but did not.

[sorgoth]

^^No it wouldn't. If it could exist, it would. No matter what. Because there would be matter, and therefore universe. Right?

[American]

Originally posted by c4ts
I think you are taking something that makes sense and twisting it into nonsense.

Yes, but... I guess. I'm not exactly trying to go "before" the first moment; I'm perfectly comfortable with the Big Bang (I actually took a Stars and Galaxies class). What I can't shake is a feeling that total nothingness should exist. Maybe only space, but not even that really. Obviously I have a static mind for this. Like a spider doing calculus- it can barely catch a bug to stay alive, let alone observe greater truths.

Here's a very good site for an introduction to Big Bang theory:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html

A sexy link to the Big Gang Bang would tell me more than that stupid page. Thanks for the effort though!

Why you say there should be nothing confuses me. I do not understand your reasoning.

I'm not so much critisizing existence as I am promoting non-existence. This is the same feeling I got in sunday school when they told us that "God is a mystery" when we all asked "who created God?" Little kids that we were, we hadn't yet learned "shut the f-ck up b1tch, you have no clue what you're talking about." Even if we had, they'd likely punish us for our thoughts no matter how gently we expressed them as such.

[aggle_rithm]

To use a programming analogy, the difference between empty space and nothingness is like the difference between an empty string and a NULL string.

An empty string is a pointer to a memory location with no data.

A NULL string is a pointer to nowhere.



:o

[Akots]

There is a difference between an undefined variable or constant, and an empty variable or constant.

I've always thought that complete Nullity would require complete ignorance. A NULL variable has a value... you just don't know what it is.

[Q-Source]

Maybe this link about Zero Ontology may help you to understand why the totality of the substantial world may be indistinguishable from nothingness.

The Zero Ontology (http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/zero.htm)

The link is an analysis of David Pearce's proposal of why anything exists at all. I am interested on this idea about nothingness but it does not mean that I am endorsing his position.

Basically, Pearce claims that when all the physical entities and their properties in reality summ up, they cancel out each other (i.e. numbers, electric charge, mass-energy, etc.) and we end up with Zero. In few words, our reality is equal to nothingness.


"In the Universe as a whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum, mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly 0. There isn't any net electric charge or angular momentum. The world's positive mass-energy is exactly cancelled out by its negative gravitational potential energy. (Provocatively, cryptically, elliptically, "nothing" exists)"


So why does it seem that we live in a world where something exists?, well ingeniously David Pearce responds that it happens that we live in a tiny part of the Universe where material things exist. But, there is somewhere else in the Universe a part where an equivalent amount of matter-energy would cancel out with us :rolleyes:

Of course, a reality equal to zero, the ultimate summation, only works for the world as a whole. So, this is pure speculation. We will never know whether or not his theory is true.

Q-S

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by Synchronicity

Absolute nothingness, the absence of space, time, or things does not exist.
It cannot. For nothingness to exist, it must be somewhere, it must be at
sometime, and it must be something. If it did so, it looses perfection, and
transforms into that which it is not. Absolute nothingness, therefore, can
never exist.


How can we know that nothingness can never exist?

Nothingness is a human construct, a representation of something that we do not have a way to prove it is true.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Q-Source
So why does it seem that we live in a world where something exists?, well ingeniously David Pearce responds that it happens that we live in a tiny part of the Universe where material things exist. But, there is somewhere else in the Universe a part where an equivalent amount of matter-energy would cancel out with us :rolleyes:

Of course, a reality equal to zero, the ultimate summation, only works for the world as a whole. So, this is pure speculation. We will never know whether or not his theory is true. If you are thinking of matter vs. antimatter, there is no astrophysical evidence that there is any bulk antimatter elsewhere in the universe (you might see, for example, a particular gamma spectrum from annihilations at the boundary between matter and antimatter regions).

Furthermore, if you annihilate a particle and an antiparticle, you get a pair of photons: the particles may disappear, but they still have nonzero total energy. Particles and antiparticles do not completely cancel.

It is a challenge to physics to explain why there isn't equal amounts of matter and antimatter. The answer is believed to rest in small but nonzero violations of symmetry between matter and antimatter. These violations have been established experimentally, though it remains to be proven that it produces the right amount of imbalance.

From a philosophical standpoint, equal amounts of + and - is still something, even if you ignore the energy question. Why those particles? Why any variation from zero at all?

Those particles exist because they can exist; nothing rules them out.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by Zombified

Furthermore, if you annihilate a particle and an antiparticle, you get a pair of photons: the particles may disappear, but they still have nonzero total energy. Particles and antiparticles do not completely cancel.

So, are you saying that even if the amount of particles and antiparticles in the Universe were the same, they still wouldn't cancel out each other?

There is no perfect symmetry in the Universe?


It is a challenge to physics to explain why there isn't equal amounts of matter and antimatter. The answer is believed to rest in small but nonzero violations of symmetry between matter and antimatter. These violations have been established experimentally, though it remains to be proven that it produces the right amount of imbalance.

I read somewhere else that antimatter exists in much more amounts than matter. The ratio between them is quite disproportionated, but could we generalise these findings to the rest of the Universe. What if as David Pearce proposes, there is another part in the whole Universe where this ratio may be the opposite?.


From a philosophical standpoint, equal amounts of + and - is still something, even if you ignore the energy question.

Could you elaborate more here?, how is it possible that there is still "something" when we summ up 1 + (-1) ?

Q-S

[Ricomise]

I think I agree with Synchronicity; "Nothingness" can not, by definition, exist.


Thinking out loud:

Existence is relative. I exist, therefore things exist relative to me. In this state, "nothing" is what I call that which appears not to exist to me; that is, what I can not perceive, or sometimes even conceive. If I did not exist, neither would anything else exist in relation to me. However, if I do not exist, I can not perceive or conceive that nothing exists, nor do I need to. Therefore, for a concept of "nothing" to exist, I must exist, therfore something must exist, and "total nothingness" can not.

(Please note: Nothing in this post is meant to be a logical proof of anything or nothing, nor to be advice on any matter. Any reading of this post is done at the reader's own risk. Author is not responsible for medical conditions, physical, mental, or emotional that may arise from the reading of this post. Do not try this at home.)

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Q-Source
So, are you saying that even if the amount of particles and antiparticles in the Universe were the same, they still wouldn't cancel out each other?The energies don't cancel, they add.
There is no perfect symmetry in the Universe?I'm not sure I would put it that way. But there's no (so far as we know) particles with negative mass or energy.
I read somewhere else that antimatter exists in much more amounts than matter. The ratio between them is quite disproportionated, but could we generalise these findings to the rest of the Universe. What if as David Pearce proposes, there is another part in the whole Universe where this ratio may be the opposite?. Did you get matter and antimatter backwards there?

If there was matter and antimatter in different regions, we would expect the area between them to involve collisions between matter and antimatter. That would produce gamma rays with a particular recognizable spectrum. That's not observed. The conclusion is that most of the universe is normal matter.
Could you elaborate more here?, how is it possible that there is still "something" when we summ up 1 + (-1) ?That the average is zero says nothing about the variability. Saying that there's non-zero variability is not much different from saying something is different from zero, so even if we proved that the average was zero, it would not really answer the question of "why is there anything".

[American]

Originally posted by Ricomise
I think I agree with Synchronicity; "Nothingness" can not, by definition, exist.

I think we're reaching the same conclusions, but with different thoughts.

I sound like a broken record now. (hey kids! Go look up "LP" or "vinyl recording technology".)

I'm thinking that nothingness is the only thing that should exist. Since it doesn't (ie- I picked my nose today, and that's something), that's illogical and so only illogic defines reality; existence is illogical, because were it logical there would truly be nothing.

Symetry equalling zero (in sum) doesn't impress me. That's something.


And amongst all of this, I still have to deal with my own reflection- that a neural network of chemicals is observing reality. Compared to what other organisms think and feel, I'm just not sure what to make of it all. Hard math impresses me, and makes me feel special. That doesn't explain anything, but I feel it's unique to humans and maybe computers. Damned if I know why.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Zombified said:The universe exists because it can. What's to prevent it? It would be stranger if the universe could exist, but did not.
But why can the universe exist?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

America said:I'm thinking that nothingness is the only thing that should exist. Since it doesn't (ie- I picked my nose today, and that's something), that's illogical and so only illogic defines reality; existence is illogical, because were it logical there would truly be nothing.
Not even nothingness. Cancel everything that exists. Cancel the space and the time and the vacuum. Cancel whatever remains after that. Then cancel the concept that there ever could be anything to cancel. Then cancel cancelling.

Why isn't that it?

~~ Paul

[American]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
America said:
Not even nothingness. Cancel everything that exists. Cancel the space and the time and the vacuum. Cancel whatever remains after that. Then cancel the concept that there ever could be anything to cancel. Then cancel cancelling.

Why isn't that it?

Seriously- because that would make sense. As it happens, stuff does exist, which doesn't make sense.

Hence, Illogic is the basis of existence.

I'm with you though... we're thinking alike.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm not sure that having stuff is more illogical than not. I'll wait on the logic until and if I ever get to know why there is stuff. The reason might be logical. :)

~~ Paul

[Solitaire]

This is a fun subject. :)
Originally posted by American
Is the imaginary number i the only answer and reason stuff exists?
Accepting that i is total nonsense, absurd, and illogical?

By itself, i is absurd and illogical; it only make sense within the larger framework.

I almost want to carry it further by saying that i shouldn't exist, but without
i maybe that would make existence logical, contrary to the rule that only i
makes all things possible and nothing else whatsoever should exist without it.

Actually, the existence without i would be profoundly confusing.
It seems like having all the parts of a machine except for one part.

I'm thinking that nothingness is the only thing that should exist.
Since it doesn't, that's illogical and so only illogic defines reality;
existence is illogical, because were it logical there would truly be nothing.
Symmetry equaling zero (in sum) doesn't impress me. That's something.

It’s a broken symmetry equaling zero. The parts never fall together
and become absolute nothing. The nothing, one might say, goes
beyond energy, matter, space, time, and even existence.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Q-Source
So why does it seem that we live in a world where something exists?
Well ingeniously David Pearce responds that it happens that we live
in a tiny part of the Universe where material things exist. But, there
is somewhere else in the Universe a part where an equivalent amount
of matter-energy would cancel out with us.

Alan Guth came up with a neat trick, take bits of matter tied to generators via ropes.
The gravitational attraction of all the matter will pull the bits together forming a black
hole. You can take all the energy from this process and turn it into new bits of matter
that have the same mass as the bits of matter you turned into a black hole.

Guth came to the conclusion that the distortion of space into a black hole acts
in a way like a form of negative energy or matter. According to general relativity
space throughout the universe ought to be bent by the matter and energy within
that space, yet when astronomers look out they see nearly perfectly square space
as if it contains no matter or energy at all.

Of course, a reality equal to zero, the ultimate summation, only works for the world as a
whole. So, this is pure speculation. We will never know whether or not his theory is true.

Not yet, perhaps, but if it isn't true then we're stuck with something rather than nothing.
And won't that be hard to explain! :D

[c4ts]

Doesn't existence itself postulate non-existence?

[lyghtningbyrd]

American - I've struggled with this same train of thought - mind-boggling isn't it? It seems the only uniformity and logic would be for there to absolute nothing. But of course if there was nothing, this nothingness void couldn't have a start or finish or boundaries at all, so it would have to be infinite, right? So maybe infinity and zero are the same. This is the conclusion that I usually come to... Of course I usually end up not caring anymore when I get to that point, and its usually when I'm really high, so it doesn't really matter.

Underemployed said:


Isn't nothingness also everything?

What with zero being infinity after all. Boy did it blow my mind when I realised THAT one!

So I guess I'm not the only one...

Now, so bare with me here this is just a thought -

If it were possible to continue magnifying matter past the point of atoms, protons, electrons, quarks, etc. etc. you will never come to an 'unbreakable' entity. So the precision is infinite, for example - Pi - 3.14159....... this number appears to become infinitely more precise in that at first it is a hexagon, then with more precision a 20-sided,then 2000-sided, 10^99999-sided... etc. ad infinitum. So maybe you eventually reach a point where it is only energy and eventually the energy slows to the point of nothing with no matter, no energy, so of course no time either or gravity - NOTHING. And that nothing is the universe itself.

If any of you have never experimented with LSD or psychedelic mushrooms, I highly suggest it. Being in a completely disassociated state of mind allows you to find JESUS - just kidding... just kidding.. hahah no but it does help, for whatever its worth. Remember though - you're on perception-altering drugs so its not going to be a scientific analysis at all - just fun.

[lyghtningbyrd]

Oh yeah - disclaimer - be safe and research dosages for LSD and mushrooms.. and take half of the average dosage the first time - too much is never fun in my experience. It's also illegal..so be careful.

[Dancing David]

Whoa there only people who have strong ego identity should even consider hallucinogens.

On the whole nothing thing. IT IS A MYSTERY!

maybe there are things we can't figure out, if I try to imagine the number 1,000,000 I have areally hard time, I can actually envision a thousand but one million is too awesome.

We stand between the realm in many ancient mysteries, sit back enjoy.

Nothing holds the universe like a mother holds a child, energy plays as do children, children need not worry.

Peace

[EdwardG]

Originally posted by American

Nothing upon nothing upon nothing makes sense. How does anything exist?

Perpetual nothing makes sense only if you suppose that In The Beginning there was nothing, and moreover that you suppose there was a Beginning at all.