Well EXISTentialism seemed the place to pose this one. Occam has been trying to place a stable concept called 'nothing' in his mind... Not, to make his mind 'empty' or any such medative regimen. But to hold stable as a concept, an understanding. The total non-existance of anything. This mind just seems to slip off the idea. Unable to concieve fully of a [non] reality he get 'just' so far'.. down to basically nothing,, but then, it slides away. The mind will not accept what is not possible. It cannot think about a thing that cannot be. Could this be some sort of LAW that governers the parrameters of thought? Or does occam simply lack the hardware to do the job? It logically suggests that reality is a permanent, infinite state. OR, is it simply that 'concept' requires a thing to concieve. And occam tries to conceptualise nothing. Thus. nothing happens Really cool stuff. No doubt all thought of before, but not by occam as albert said. "in understanding reality, imagination is of far greater importance than intelligence." Occam
interesting you should bring up this subject, i have a friend who fully believes that nothing exists, its a concept which i also have always had difficulty to concieve, but its one thats very widely perscribed to...paramenadies is one of the prime people i can think of that believed this, its very perplexing stuff.. can you imagine a world fully of substance? where every single bit of space is taken up, a place completely opposite to our own, where "solidness" rather than space is in abundance? thats the opposite of nothingness. personally i dont believe in nothingness, but then against logic is a flawed profession. spyder doesnt know!
the opposite of nothingness is the earth. Because the gases around us are abundant with atoms. we do not live in a vacuum.
Maybe we all lack the hardware to percieve true nothingness because our minds developed under the illusion that this nothing it truly somethingness... so maybe it is beyond our perception to know nothingness by sense, perhaps we must only know nothing by faith.
Why is Nothing an important concept to master? Where is Nothing? I always see something, or can assume transparent molecules are there at the very least.
Because for all we know, for all our assumptions, guesses, beliefs, and ideas... We can't be absolutely sure that anything truly exists --- and it is just an interesting concept that most of the universe is comprised of nothing I also like to think this Nothing is god.... .... so god is nothing
corduroy Not so...Prove to yourself that you dont exist.. The very existance of your abillity to think the idea. A thing that is not, no-thing. Proves absolutely [to you] that you do exist. One can only question if one exists...if one does. ANY PHENOMENON [something that happens] Proves the existane of 'a' reality. Occam
The Universe is comprised of empty space. For it to be "nothing" it would have to exist outside of space and time. Nothing is not empty space, it is just space unoccupied. What lies outside the physical Universe is Nothing. So if the Universe is bounded by Nothingness, then there is something within Nothing, the Universe itself. The empty Universe existing in Nothing is not like throwing a lit seed into the middle of an empty absolutely dark warehouse because the warehouse has walls, a floor and a ceiling (6 walls). As the expanding Universe exands into Nothingness space is created and with it time and light. Trying to think about Nothing is like asking a born from blind person what it feels to not see light. Only we can detect light and darkness. The blind person cannot detect darkness, it just "isn't". The total non-existance of anything cannot be contemplated because it uses the mind, a limited tool of understanding. When was the number 0 conceptualised? We are told that any number divided by zero is meaningless. So mathematics would then delve into philosophy. At a logical level, nothingness may mean death, that one is trying to conceptualise non-existance, of being nothing or being in Nothingness. The "-ness" is existential, it is an experience, a feeling. But if you are asked if you feel nothing for a person, when you say that you feel nothing just means that you are insensitive. Your not feeling a change one way or the other is indicative of your reference, your base level, your electrical potential. So birds can sit on electrical overhead wires and not be electrocuted because there is no difference in potential. Your insensitivity is like that bird on the electrified wires, there is no return path so there is no difference in potential. Is there an Isolation Tank in your area? They usually charge like $25 an hour. If you are immersed in this isolation tank for a week, with out sound, without light, without feeling, wearing an oxygen mask, you will probably go insane. When you go insane you will have contemplated Nothingness. There you are floating in 98.6 degree water, your ears, mouth and ears plugged up and in total darkness... You can't scream, only hum. You could hum "OM" to try and keep your sanity, though. To experience Nothingness you will have to not think, not think on nothing. You should detect your thoughts slowing down, approaching Death. With no stimulii you will grow bored, you lose track of time. With that loss of time you should see time slaowing down. All you may hear is your breathing in and out. You're back in your mother's womb and wonder why you didn't go insane before you were born? Then it hits you - you didn't go insane because you weren't thinking. But now you can't give up thinking, can you? http://www.answers.com/topic/isolation-tank http://wild-bohemian.com/tanktrip.htm http://www.tomigaya.shibuya.tokyo.jp/lilly/experiment02x.html http://www.ace.to/isolation.html Ever see the very first "Hawaii 5-0" episode? It was about a man immersed in an isolation tank for weeks at a time.
ah man, I'm sorry dude, I can't help it... but did you know that you ARE occam? LOL! no harm intended, I think I heard that joke on seinfeld when someone was refering to themselves in the third person. I just couldn't keep it inside, it made me think of it. I'm not saying it's stupid or do I think you should stop. I think it's different, k& entertaining. Is there any reason why you do it? or has it just always been? you don't have to answer that if you don't wanna
The closest you can come to experiencing nothing is to become everything, because there's nothing else to experience. You'll never be nothing, though, obviously. You'll always exist. It's really a question of "Who are you?" Are you the elemental parts of your body, or the sum of the parts? When you die, the sum of your parts no longer exists. At least not in that moment in time, though you have to consider that time is, essentially, meaningless. Just because something is gone now does not mean it is gone in reality. Even you, now, exist, without time, as a person that does not exist. Nothingness will only ever exist as purely imaginary. It can't be known to be anything more. If that existence is imaginary, why not imagine something more interesting?
Occam is probably doomed to failure because existentialism is all about experience and how, it being subjective, it cannot be conveyed to others. Existentialism is "to do" not "to think about". Therefore to understand Nothingness you'd have to experience it. Thinking about it is useless and a waste of energy. This is why I bought up the Isolation Tank as a suggestion. "To think about" is philosophy. For the most part existentialism belongs to the world of the spiritualist, subjectivity, while philosophy belongs to the world of the materialist, objectivity. Instead of contemplating nothingness, which can't really be done, why not try to contemplate love? You've experienced it so it should be easy enough to recall. But it isn't, is it? Because recall is not experience. The mind is trying to rationalise the heart's feelings. Words won't be able to convey the elation and joy you felt. So all the poets and painters have all failed to truly represent their feelings. You can look at all the paintings of a sunrise but none will look as beautiful as one you have experienced for yourself, because there is no feeling in the painting; you can't feel the wind on your face nor the dew under your feet, the silence of the painting isn't really silence because your mind is thinking, whereas when you view the sunrise your hearing opens up and becomes sensitive instead of dull. Those feelings of air temperature, wind speed, moisture, screeching of the hawks and eagles can't be conveyed on canvas. How then can one convey them with words?
I also believe that only in Death we experience Nothingness. Death is like the Anestesia of life.. you feel, you think, you know, you do, you experience nothing. Since I went trough surgery when I was 15, and had Anestesia.. I have this concept that Death is the anestesia of life... eliminating all sense of feel, thinking.. everything.. because at that moment when I went to sleep.. and woke up somewhere else.. I was like It didnt happened, I had no sense of time and space, I was like I just closed my eyes for a second, and now Im here.. and look at the time. Because at that moment you are experiencing nothing, you realize nothing.. is like you cease to exist. That's what I think Death is like... just ceasing to exist, and when that happens you feel nothing about it because your being becomes nothing.
Autentique: It's funny you should say that. My belief is that we become everything when we die, but it's mainly for the same reasons you say you think in death we 'experience' nothing. I was writing an experimental form of A.I. a while back (a brain with senses and primitive outputs like 'mouth') and I came across the problem of nothingness. It's hard to explain how I worked this out but in short, I came to the concluson that nothing is the 'origin', the center point of an infinite line (minus infinity being the start, nothing the middle and infinity being the end). Nothing and infinity or everything are simply measuring tools. Without nothing, everything would not exist, and vice/versa.. or to put it another way, the only reason you percieve a world in front of you (everything) is because the nature of perception causes it to end at some point (nothing).... Also.. for reasons that would take pages to explain, but mainly as an "emotion simulator", the A.I. would basically try to avoid it's concept of 'nothing' (0, or death) and do anything it could to get closer to 'everything' (1, or life). The point of this was to give the A.I. an incentive to grow.. but the funny thing is that if a computer was not based on 1's and 0's, like our world isn't, the A.I. would never become nothing and simply become smaller parts of everything else. I wish I could explain my abstract concepts better.. but maybe you see what I mean..
Too much hardware. Too much software input. Firmware is programmed incorrectly. Must update BIOS. The closest you'll probably come to Nothing will probably be Nirvana. But the mind cannot conceive of, nor contemplate, Nothingness. You will first have to empty your mind of everything. The last vistage to go may be the "I". But then your mind may not know that it is in Nothingness. But if you are trying to conceive of, or contemplate, Nothingness as where one goes into upon death. Good Luck... -Buddhism 201.
I can imagine nothing, but I can't stop thinking. Weather we are an illusion, or we are real, it doesn't matter because I precieve things the way I do. I have chosen to live my life as if we exist because I precieve things that way. It is the "I think therefor I am". What am I? I am atleast my own perception, and maybe but not necessarily more (such as atoms and stuff). I think that the past is infinate, and the future is infinate. I do not fear death, because I have already experienced half of it, before I was born.
"nothing exists, whether of ourselves, others, or nothing whatsoever" this is a paraphrase from nagarjuna. I am no budhist philosopher but when I am going up on a big acid trip, at the peak, I sometimes experience what can maybe be described as no "thingness", a negation of delusions. Kind of like the acid is the light that disperses the shadows
