Nothing
Is hard to grasp. No, It's not that everything is graspable. The word "nothing" is a funny thing to think about. So, here's a short post about nothing at all...
image by Zaneology - source: flickr
What is "nothing"? That question in itself is kind of a conundrum. The very meaning of the word implies that it cannot "be". It's not there. It can't be, so the question what it "is", is a contradiction in itself.
Think of "nothing". But how could I? Thinking about "nothing" I'm still thinking about something when trying to do that: I'm trying to imagine the meaning of the word in my mind's eye and I keep failing. Is it unending blackness? Nope, that's something. Is it silence? Emptiness? A vacuum?
Let's try the dictionary. Oh wait, we're on the internet, so Wikipedia it is:
Nothing is a concept denoting the absence of something, and is associated with nothingness. In non-technical uses, nothing denotes things lacking importance, interest, value, relevance, or significance. Nothingness is the state of being nothing, the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing.
source: Wikipedia
Darn... Wikipedia is better than me ;-) So, "...the state of nonexistence of anything" is the best we got until now. Although I would add "at all" at the very end of that...
I would like to challenge you and try to answer the following: Is the question "why is there something instead of nothing" a stupid question?
It's the oldest question we have as sentient beings: why does everything exist? When did all this get started and how did it come to be? And I mean everything, not just our universe; when and how did nothing become something? And was there ever a state of nonexistence of anything?
Albert Einstein
image by ParentRap - source: pixabay
Einstein once thought that his cosmological constant was his biggest mistake, but it wasn't:
In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ) is the value of the energy density of the vacuum of space. It was originally introduced by Albert Einstein in 1917 as an addition to his theory of general relativity to "hold back gravity" and achieve a static universe, which was the accepted view at the time.
source: Wikipedia
Yes, the great Einstein "fudged" the equations to match his calculations to the wisdom of his day, which was a static, non-expanding universe. But now we know that even his cheating was brilliant:
The cosmological constant is the simplest possible form of dark energy since it is constant in both space and time, and this leads to the current standard model of cosmology known as the Lambda-CDM model, which provides a good fit to many cosmological observations.
source: Wikipedia
His cosmological constant became the "nothingness" in-between the stuff that makes up our visible universe, the nothingness that now appears not to be nothing at all. Years ago I saw this lecture by Lawrence Krauss entitled "A Universe From Nothing", and he startled me with the following assertion. He said that if scientists add up all the energy in the known universe, with all matter (because E=MC2 remember?), light, heat, everything including all negative gravitational energy, that that all adds up to... zero. NOTHING. Everything we know exists adds up to nothing at all... It was during the time he promoted his book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, and he hypothesized that everything really could have come from nothing, given a mechanism to split nothing into it's positive and negative components.
What is "nothing"? CNN interview with Lawrence Krauss
Boggles the mind, I know. But that's exactly why I like thinking about this so much :-) Something from nothing is the question that divides science and religion. Or does it? In religion there's never a point when there's nothing. God is eternal, He's always there. Somehow, looking at the entirety of existence with my limited human mind, creation by some all powerful being seems like less of a miracle to me that spontaneous existence popping up from nonexistence. And God isn't the only place to find eternity of existence: Einsteins static universe was eternal to, and static, non-expanding.
Actually that wasn't Einsteins model of the universe, but Fred Hoyle's model. A fun thing to note here is that the term Big Bang was coined by Hoyle as a derogatory term to make fun of that theory, as he was convinced the universe was static (but so did Einstein, so he was in good company):
He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio.
source: Wikipedia
Although Hoyle was proven wrong for now and for this particular universe, no one knows what lies beyond the visible universe. No one knows if we're just one of many in a multiverse, and maybe the multiverse is static and eternal, negating the need for creation or a creator. One thing I know for sure: "nothing" never existed and never will exist, since it is nonexistence. If you're as eager to fill your mind with useless knowledge about nothing, below is the entire lecture from Lawrence Krauss. It's an hour long, but it's real fun to watch (or at least wacky me thought so):
Lawrence Krauss: A Universe From Nothing
And if you really have nothing at all to do, here's an hour and a half discussion about just that between different scientists and philosophers from the World Science Festival:
NOTHING: The Science of Emptiness
I have nothing more to add.
For now at least ;-) As always I want to express my gratitude for your continued patronage of my small blog, my fellow Steemians. Thank you, and keep curious (and Steeming)!
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It's funny reading this, because the concept of nothingness helped me get over my fear of the unknown/death. Nothingness isn't an experience so it's kind of pointless to ever fear having an experience that can't be had right? :)
Right!
This is funny... For a long time now I've been of the opinion that fear of death is ultimately kinda ridiculous because of a different, but very much related reason. We do fear the unknown, we even fear the "act" of "not knowing", ignorance (although that's very much a fear by conditioning, peer pressure). But, the fact that we die is one of the very few things in life we can all be absolutely sure about...
So, yes: there's no compelling reason to assume there's anything to be experienced after death, just like there's no reason to assume we experienced anything before we were born. Returning to the state of "not being" shouldn't worry us at all.
But still... If I'm totally honest, I don't think any of us really know if we've overcome our natural fear of death (you know, evolution and all) until we're actually there. What I have read on several occasions is that ancient and current traditional cultures use psychedelics, mushrooms, ayahuasca-like substances on the elderly of whom they know are leaving this world; it seems to take away any fear for what will come afterwards.
Fear of death might be irrational, but that's what we are: mostly irrational. There's nothing weird or wrong with fearing death, but it's also liberating to embrace death as a necessary element of all life, because without it life really would essentially be worthless; life is precious because it ends :-)
Thanks for poking my brain some more @clayboyn; I always appreciate that :-)
I actually disagree on knowing whether or not you've overcome your fear of death. When we stop living our lives in fear, I think it's a strong indicator that we've overcome it, at least to a certain extent. What is there to fear honestly? :D
I can only speak for myself ultimately, but I experience the following: everything I ever tried for the first time, brought with it some amount of what we in day-to-day life call "fear". Doesn't matter if it's the first time speaking to the classroom, taking the first dive from the high springboard at the swimming pool or the first time I jumped out of an airplane, even though I knew full well that the parachute on my back would prevent death. But after that first dive, I was always eager to go again. Death isn't repeatable, you can't practice it; there'll only ever be that first time and I'm almost sure it won't be the same kind of apprehension I had when kissing a girl for the first time ;-) Like I said: you're right, there should be nothing to fear, just lake at the swimming pool where I saw scores of kids jump before me without anything scary happening. That doesn't mean, however, I won't be afraid when my time comes; I'll tell you what happened afterwards, okay? ;-)
Lol, I get what you're saying. It feels like to me personally that fear has shifted into something that no longer hinders me. Even if there is momentary apprehension, it usually shifts into exhilaration at doing something new or different now. I previously would never do anything new or take chances because I just always assumed the worst.
This I can totally see :-) And you just made me realize: we can of course "practice" being less afraid for "first experiences" in general! That's exactly what I think you're saying here :-) Hah! I wouldn't know how to get data to support this very plausible proposition, but would it be true that people that do lots of new things in their lives are, on average, less afraid of that ultimate new experience..? Wow, you just gave me a whole new path to check out, that's great! Thanks! :-)
Great post! Nihilism has never been my thing.
Thanks @wstanley226! :-) Nihilism is the bane of our modern-day society; not my thing either ;-)
Everything out of nothing sure is a very weak argument and base to build science on. I would like to see the solution, 0 = 1 ? It truley is incomprehensible on every level, thought, experience and mathematically. It can never be, since being is something :) Every concept we know captures an idea, not the lack of one.
Very interesting topic and thanks for a great post!
Thank you for leaving this comment @clausewitz :-) I agree; nothing comes from nothing. But Krauss does make a compelling point; we can now observe that the total energy in our current universe adds up to zero. It's just that there's a lot of positive and a lot of negative energy, the solution according to him is 1 + (-1) = 0, and that's right. What Krauss does, however is "fudge", like Einstein did; his explanation of "nothing" is heavily criticized, because he does assume the existence of some mechanism to "separate" these positive and negative components from each other. So ultimately his "nothing" isn't really nothing. He takes an hour to explain this, so I won't even try to go into more detail here ;-)
I'm just so glad you think this is worth pondering on; it's like we live in times when people just don't take the time to wonder about the miracle that is life, just take it for granted and do almost everything on auto-pilot. This really is why I'm so glad with you, and other readers of course :-) So, thanks once again, my fiend. I hope to see you here again!
Wounder which quantum phenomena that fluctuates in nothing, I think he has many problems with this theory but I must watch the presentation in full, only familiar with some details.
But there are more then + and - charges.. WIMPS, Neutrinos, dark matter etc and even if it all balanced out, there are natural laws prior to having + and - since those, requires precise natural laws. So he admits to a source of natural laws, something where this universe can come into existence, something timeless, since time is not born yet and is not needed on the quantum scale. It sounds very similar to something else, eternal source of existence, governing it with unchangeable laws :)
But I again, I gotta watch the rest of it :)
Hehe He did forget the preceding quantum dynamics, how can he say there is dynamics in the same sentence as he calls it nothing, without coming to insight that it fails ... I mean really, if you have nothing in something, something is there :))
It is very easy to see that he want´s to belive this so bad, which might drive him to put this forth as possible or plausible rather.
I also find it both important and interesting to ponder upon existence, which lead me to altruism and creation of free will as the purpose of life :)
Thanks!
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!! .... (speechless)..! :-) Wow, thank you @clayboyn and all you wonderful people at @minnowsupport and @msp-curation, you're too kind :-)
I like the sentence - nothing matters.
I think nothing gives us everything in the way that when we free our mind and shut the inner talk, something comes up anyway. It's the universe guiding our way.
What you say here, @spellmaker, is precisely what made me doubtful of the purely materialistic explanation of consciousness as an "emergent phenomenon" caused by complicated electrochemical processes in the brain. Thoughts keep "popping up" and I don't feel like I'm the author of all of them. Very good observation, @spellmaker, thanks for adding that :-)