JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum "Nothing" important...

Contemplating again…

I’ve been trying to imagine the concept “nothing”. We use the word casually all the time without considering exactly what it is.

At first I pictured “nothing” as empty black space. But wait, empty black space is something. So that can’t be what nothing is. Nothing would have to be devoid of all the “somethings” in my imagination.

Was there ever a time, when all that existed was “nothing”? I mean “absolute” nothing. It couldn’t look like anything, otherwise it would be something. And if there were a “nothing” era, how did we get to this?

My only conclusion, though it boggles my brain even more,is that there has always been “something”. There has never been a time of “nothing”.

How can us Earthlings be anything but humble to the unimaginable?

Isn’t life miraculous?

Best, John

You just made me have a panic attack!

John

Ahhh John
A thought I can relate to.

when is there nothing?

When you are dead

nothing = the absence of existence

BUT

if there is an absence of existence, then that means nothing could ever exist because there is no growth if there is nothing to grow from.

That also means if nothing can grow, nothing can be destroyed. So duality can't exist either because there are NO opposites to balance existence and non-existence.

SO

if the argument that nothing is improbable, then that means existence of something has always been. If existence of something has always been, then something can be grown and/or destroyed, re-constructed, and cycles are born.

The complexities of existence also require management and organization, otherwise something would remain at their base element. That implies someone nudges something in a purposeful design.

Nothing would be an absolute 0, but there is no absolute 0. There is 1 and a -1 with a mediator in between. :-)

That also goes to say that "nothing" is NOT important, but that something IS.

Nope. Because there wouldn't have been time either. Time didn't start until there was something.

Well, my opinion anyway

But I DO agree that life is miraculous

Scott

My idea about nothing.

Christopher Robin: What I like most of all is just doing nothing.
Winnie the Pooh: How do you do just nothing?
Christopher Robin: Well, when grown-ups ask, "What are you going to do?" and you say, "Nothing," and then you go and do it.
Winnie the Pooh: I like that. Let's do it all the time.

JOHN--

You have touched on a delicate subject--SOME THOUGHTS:

NOTHING=NOTHING

VOID=VOID

ANYTHING RAISED TO THE ZERO POWER IS 1--REMEMBER ZERO IS THE LACK OF SOMETHING.

NO WARMTH IS KIN TO COLD

WITHOUT WARMTH WE WILL DIE; NO WARMTH NO ENERGY;COLD COLD HEART;AND NO LOVE;ABSOLUTE ZERO--MOLECULES SLOW--FROZEN SPACE

ABSOLUTE EMPTY=ABSENCE OF SOMETHING=NOTHING=LONELIEST COLD..COLD HEART.

WITHOUT....WITHOUT.....WITHOUT......

UNLOVED IS KIN TO LONELY--AND A NOTHING KIND OF FEELING!

WOW!

Mackie

Along the lines of what Gregory was saying.

For nothing to exist there must be something.

When I was a kid I used to hurt my head thinking about the edge of the universe. Yes it’s millions and millions of light years away, but when you get to the edge of the universe what then? What is beyond that edge? Nothing? No because even nothing is something

Busy Doing Nothing

Hi,

I see the makings of a fun song regarding this thread :-)


Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Waxing philosophical again, eh John?

Just how deep can "nothing" be? I'm pretty sure I'll discover it in a few years... if not already. Calvin's right... this could be the subject of an interesting song.

Thanks, Wendy... for reminding me of my favorite childhood animal friend... Pooh! Now that's philosophy at it's best... LOL!

Right up there with Pogo Possum as I see things.

Thanks for sharing you thoughts, fellow navel gazers!

Dave

Julie says "nothing comes from nothing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXChoGTpwmk

Seems there's always alittle "something" even in the "nothings"

"There's nothing on the menu that I want"
(but there's plenty of things on the menu)

"There's nothing left in this relationship"
(sure there's memories, photographs and that teddy bear he bought you)

"There's nothing left to talk about"
(there's always something more to say)

etc. etc.

My favourite song about nothing is from "Porgy and Bess".
(By George Gershwin & DuBose Heyward)

Porgy sings:

I got plenty'a nothin'
And nothin's plenty for me...
Etc. etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giVGv_dnmdY

Donna

Well it seems there's plenty to be said about nothing.

One of my favorites as well Donna.

Didn't Barry White sing "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing".

Yeah, Pooh, one of my favorite characters. What a unique voice Sterling Holloway had. I remember him on "The Life of Riley, Andy Griffith, Superman (the professor), and Pooh.

Anyway, the concept nothing is impossible to imagine being surrounded by all our somethings. Even when I start a new composition there's the blank manuscript. Even if it weren't for the manuscript it would exist as an idea in my brain. Maybe before the idea comes to me there exists a moment of nothing. But then a moment is a measurement of time which is something as Scott stated.

As I see it "nothing" can't exist now, past, or present. Which brings another concept my brother got me contemplating about. "Now" is the only time period of existence. "Each moment is only until the next proceeds and obliterates that moment" -Robert Schick III.

John

Collective consiousness at work
I started a song with these very words a few weeks ago. The subject matter is a bit different but the idea is the same. Something in Nothing
I had put it aside but now I guess I'll work on it some more

I thought "nothing" was slang for "paycheck"..

Look forward to it Bill.

John

"So tell me your idea about the show"

"It's a show about Nothing".

"Well, Something has to happen." ???

"No! No! Nothing happens! Nothing happens!

"Then why would people want to watch it"

"Because it's on TV!"

...."Not yet".

"Seinfeld": The show about "nothing", but had just about everything in it!

I LOVE this subject, and spend a lot of TIME thinking about Time, which contains "everything. So, what about Nothing?

I think as Scott does, about "time". (Knowing a thing or two about time, for,,,,well, you know,,,,our band name we had?. And a song of mine that Brian likes so much, being about "time"? So, being as I have a musician's self appointed degree in Time, ("Doctor Time", thank you), I think Time is an instant by-product of Energy. ("Movement" of anything "making" Time).

Since Inertia is what it is, (stuck), Movement is the only thing that leads to Kinetic Energy. Therefore, only something moving could later produce a perception of nothing. (As in a ball being thrown up in the air, Or the beginning of "this" Universe).

First, the ball thing: At the highest point, it stops. (No apparent movement of the ball). Some would call that a Nothing period, for Nothing seems to be happening. BUT, the energy of movement "up" is only being canceled out before gravity wins. So that gets me thinking about "our" Big Bang. I suggest that a single parent Universe collapsed to allow "our" big bang to happen. (The child in a sense of the previous Universe). Same with the one before our parent one. And so on and so one backwards in "time". "Energy not able to be created or destroyed". Simple explanations, (Occam's Razor), are usually the correct ones.

Like the ball in an apparent stop position, (where Nothing seems to be happening), Time reaches an apparent end, maybe only to have the previous Universe transfer energy. (Handing over the reigns to a new Universe). Expanding, then collapsing, to another big bang and expansion, to another collapse, etc. Always Energy. Always in some Time.

The end of a previous Universe that dies a horrific collapse, much like a star ending in a Supernova, gives birth to it's child Universe to grow up and be whatever it will. Time doesn't need a first start. Everything else doesn't really have one either if we think about previous direct connections. Our own lives have an apparent beginning. But wasn't every parent, grandparent, great grandparent and so on we have all contributing to the slow cooking recipe for "us"? Only that it took Time for us to come to be a human form. And before the first person, to have previous energy events lead to that first person? Everything then is connected by "Energy". Energy being Time, Time is not capable of having a Nothing. (Occom's Razor)

If energy can't be stopped, and everything is connected? Then it's all a revolving time-line of always having energy around, with countless Universes before this one. If so, then there truly can't be nothing, for Energy is Time. And Time has Something happening! Just like the Seinfeld shows!

As far as "who or what" created energy? Did Energy need to be created? Proof being it's endless characteristics? Human Brains who could think up stuff early on created God in their image, it seems. Many different Gods, depending on what tribe or country or religion you ask. For people saw beginnings and ends with their daily living. Too short of a time period to judge the time of Infinity though. So, of course, people had to come up with "Something" to try to explain everything they saw.

Everything seems to have been connected for All Time, (Past and Future), which is All the Time there is!

Something! Everything! Eternal! All the Same.

"Nothing" (simply) cannot exist, right?. Lynn points out how we use that word though.

Fun topic! I may be partly or all wrong of course. But it ALL just seems logical and obvious. Nothing is nothing more than thinking there has to be something else.

My head is exploding...had to take a Xanex!

I have come to the conclusion this is all way to complicated for me.
I think it all exists in our own minds. Everything from the infinity of the Universe right down to the quarks in the single cell bacteria that lives on the space bar of your Computer keyboard.
It all exists within our own mind.
Our Mind exists in an organic lump of meat we call a brain. It's fed by the blood pumping through our veins. Cut off the flow of blood and the brain dies. The Delete key is hit and our mind is erased.Then there is nothing.

Of course I still haven't figured out which life I am living. The one in my dreams or this one where I am typing this silly post about a subject which I haven't a clue what I am talking about.
I think I'd prefer the one in my dreams. There's more sex, I ride a Harley, and can play guitar better than Chet. And my Corvette is finished and I can drive it at it's limit of 160 mph without fear of a speeding ticket.
But of course I might wake up in half an hour and realize this is all a dream and none of this exists.
Therefore it's Nothing

"When I was a kid I used to hurt my head thinking about the edge of the universe. Yes it’s millions and millions of light years away, but when you get to the edge of the universe what then? What is beyond that edge? Nothing? No because even nothing is something" - Nigel

Yes, I would drive myself crazy when I was a child thinking about the end of the Universe. Actually the same question. It's all about defining "nothing".

John

When I was a kid, I used to lay back and look at the stars and ask questions like: "Where the Hell's the roof?"

Where would we be without nothing? Now it is hard to believe but God supposedly made the universe from nothing…yet it took a rib to make a woman……I cannot get my head round that one. Many great thinkers have written books and thought about nothing and without these thoughts nothing would have been done and we would be nowhere with nothing. Our computers are programmed with loads of nothings and cannot work without them. Our bankers rely on a whole bunch of nothings to put at the end of some numbers but even they ended up with nothing. Modern logic made it possible to articulate these points coherently as intended, and many philosophers hold that the word "nothing" does not function as a noun, as there is no object to which it refers. There remain various opposing views, however—for example, that our understanding of the world rests essentially on noticing absences and lacks as well as presences, and that "nothing" and related words serve to indicate these. One version of the story of nothing goes as follows: Nothing started out as an ordinary nothing. However, it was sick of being misnamed so it worked hard, and harder, and harder until it became included in every darn song made by the Beatles. But even this wasn't enough, as it became power hungry and began invading the houses of ordinary people, dressed as encyclopedia sellers, door salesmen, and it also came in the form of pie-eating contests; a form no one saw coming. Nothing soon took over nothing and everything. It became CEO of CBS, which is why that channel has absolutely nothing, and sometimes even less than nothing, which is an incredible feat that ABC is trying to do itself. There has been much ado about nothing. Nothing has been underestimated by everyone and it is now time to realize that nothing is important.

this is all GREAT reading.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Without Googling, I think it was Billy Preston who did that song. Billy also played keyboard on a lot of Beatles songs, which leads me to wonder where, exactly, did the "Nowhere Man" live?

Midnite

Please sir!! I know this one, he lives in his nowhere land Which you can see in The Yellow Submarine film when that very naughty suck-y thing sucks up everything including itself Which is a good trick if you can do it!

So, young man, you're telling me that the yellow suck-y thing, which WAS something, swallowed up Nowhere Land, and then, BECAME nothing?

Is this where the next Big Bang will come from? Methinks it's gonna be messy.

Midnite

There is no such thing as nothing.

That's my theory as well Colin. However, the idea of there never being "nothing" is just as mind-boggling.

Calvin was correct though; it's been an interesting read.

Best, John

Practice not-doing
And nothing will be left undone

Well it is a fascinating issue. I read quite a bit about cosmology and how current thinking among the astrophysics community is dealing with the issue. It is very difficult to conceptualize but essentially there is no nothing. Space is curved and there is no edge. An analogy in two dimensions is a loop of string. There is no "end" just like in the universe there is no edge.

It gets even more complicated when one considers the presently accepted view that there are 10 dimensions instead of four that we commonly think of. The extra dimensions are very small - quite difficult to visualize except in mathematical terms.

And then there is the issue of muti-universes. According to M theory (formerly string theory), there are probably an infinite number of universes being created each moment - for all possible outcomes of events.

Quite something to think about.

Tom

OK, who is going to tell Bono, you or me?


As the great Eric Idle once said:
You know, you come from nothing
you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!

Maybe that's a piece of the "nothing" concept. "Nothing" is what we were before we were conceived. Then again, we were probably an infinite quantity of possibilities considering the destination of egg and sperm. So I guess we were a possibility before we were conceived.

Best, John

I'm fascinated with all this Tom. Will we ever know the whole story?

A couple years ago I got into a debate with a mathematician. I told him if you keep dividing a number in half, it will only keep getting smaller and smaller. He explained to me with long complex equations where it would eventually be "0" (nothing).

Commonsense tells me otherwise. I couldn't accept it. Of course those equations were way beyond my Algebra classes in high school.

John

I've been told that we only use about 10% of our brains.
I have oftern pondered what the other 90% is for.
Perhaps the answer to all these questions and many more dwell within.
Now wouldn't that be somethin.

Larry

Funny Larry, Sandra thinks I only use 5% of my brain (and only 5% of the time).

John

You were both right, John - it just depends on how you define "eventually". To a mathematician, "eventually" generally means "at infinite time".

Scott

Yes Scott, I can understand the mathematician's point of view. And for all practical purposes the number would become so close to "0" that it makes sense to label it zero.

However, commonsense tells me if something continues to be cut in half, it will always be something. Though I’ve never taken this math problem to infinity. Maybe it will eventually become nothing.

John

Figured I'd bump this interesting topic up. I sure wouldn't want anyone to miss nothing.

John

You were told wrong, by someone that is only using the assumption part of their brain! LOL

We actually use all of our brain. And, at different times, using more of one part or another, and in many interconnecting ways. It's all constantly under synapse fire! Just depends on what is being thought of and done at any given time. Even sleep! Really fired up during all stages, in different areas. Music, sites, sounds, emotions, decision thinking, reaction, etc., are areas all being fired up even when we think our brain is sleeping. So even during sleep, we are certainly using all our brain! Some should stay asleep!

Here's some weird facts of late about the conscience part of our brains: According to the latest data from the mental health professionals, about 50% of people do not have a fully evolved frontal lobe, making for most, if not all criminals, "having little or no ability to have a conscience". Read that again!

THAT is a HUGE factor in thinking many do not use all of their brains. But we all use whatever we have. When you hear of somebody just not caring about what they do or have done, most can't help it in very real hard drive way, (lacking the crucial part of the brain to even have a conscience). Wow! But, even they have used all of their brain for one thing or another. (They just need a hard drive installation to use that too)!

Too bad Apple isn't working on that for us human computers, instead of making artificial computers and phones "smart"er. Imagine that! Would be criminals as kids stand in line with their parents to not buy an I-pad, bit to buy a frontal lobe installation, or any kind of an upgrade! They come in without caring about their actions, and go out with always making their parents proud, (unlike Jeffery Dahmer's parents, for example). He knew what he was wrong, for he saw society not do those things, but he said he "didn't feel it was wrong"). NO conscience to stop him. Just was not a part of his brain. He didn't ignore it, (Or not use it), for it wasn't there to deal with. He said to have his brain examined after being executed. That was the smartest thing he ever said.

Brain activity scans shows what parts of the brain are actually developed to be able to use. With brain evolution still in the intermediate phase, many people are just not out of the woods yet. With some societies and all technology advancing more than what 100% of humans can handle, (50% not having the updated hardware yet in the frontal lobe area), it just seems some are not using all their brain. It just shows they are not able to use what they don't have.

It is the luck of being on the right branch of our family tree that has us either caring about our actions or not, (frontal lobe capabilities as to their original formation when in the fetus stage. Some have more frontal lobe capabilities than others. (Some conscience in some to all kinds of degrees, non in others). Harden killers for the mob or whoever? Check their frontal lobes. Will be absent of the conscience part to not ever have any remorse or care. When interviewed, they talk as if it was going to the store to get eggs. Just a job they did. No feelings for people or their own actions. But again, using all the brain they do have,,,all the time. Motion, sight, touch, smell, plans, directions, etc. Many parts of the brain always working with others. Some areas more alive than others, and thus more fully formed, due to need.

Many nation and religious leaders could order and do what they did for not having a developed conscience. But again, all used all what they did have. Like a running engine or computer, many parts are connected and are all doing "something"!

And I know just where all those “lobe-less” people with no conscious are working!

This whole space and nothing thing hurts my brain. I mean what is nothing? The abscense of something? The absence of light we have dark but dark is something. So even when there’s nothing there’s always something right? Nothing is something but something is never nothing.

Next topic infinity. When will it stop and then what?

Ahh songwriters. Why can’t we just wonder about simple things?

Well I think it's all a big ado about nothing

Well someone had to say it.

Hi John

You are all too much!


Write a song about it, I can't stop laughing!

I actually learnt stuff like this from a counselor, regarding the word 'WHY' how many people say 'Why Me' I know I have plenty of times, he taught me their is no such thing as why, hmm, so I changed my way of thinking, example, Why are they hurting me so badly, now I say, they are nothing but Ass holes, LOL, oops, theirs that word Nothing. So I'll take out the Nothing, and it's they are Ass holes, sorry about the language.

Thanks for teaching me about NOTHING!

Hugs Michele

Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing--Billy Preston.

HiDee Brother Johnnie..I woke up at 5AM today, since this Initial Question of "Does 'Nothing' Exist" has a rather simple answer, JMO.

Your initial premise "'Empty Black Space' IS Something" for-starters isn't true. It's a nice Verbal Description OF 'Nothing'..but just because you CAN describe it doesn't De-Validate it's Existence.

Matter-of-Fact: "Most matter IS empty space"..so there's really a LOT of "Nothing" to go-around (Even AFTER the Singularity Popped..13.7 Billion years ago..& "Something" became reality.)

"Deep space is 4 degrees above absolute zero" means, yeah, there's SOMETHING (atoms, for sure) In-Between all the NOTHING out there..but that's very FEW of those Somethings, & Temperature's-Taken over a period of TIME. (So at any given instant, I'd argue there's NOTHING to BE measured..SOME of the TIME.)

Oh, and that's using just the 4 Dimensions we know much about. (We still know Next-to-NOTHING about the Others we're discovering..Or WHY we're blessed..or maybe cursed..with all this SOMETHING-Ness...)

Your Fellow MugWump,
Stan

A lot of interesting thoughts about "nothing" and our brains (Johnny Daubert).

Stan, I still contend that "empty black space" is something. It's empty black space. One can see it. It's black and empty. . IMO absolute "nothing" can't even be imagined. It's devoid of anything & everything" including space.

John

So by saying 'I Have Nothing To Say' have I actually proved myself wrong.

God Bless Roy and Helen