I've been thinking. Always perilous.
Commence with the logic of noise-cancelling headphones: an unwanted ambient sound of a certain frequency, such as the drone of a jet engine, can be cancelled out by emitting in equal measure a new sound of the same frequency yet 180 degrees out of phase with the unwanted sound. Each crest of the unwanted sound wave overlaps a trough of the new sound wave, resulting in a cancellation of the two. Similarly the troughs of the unwanted sound are cancelled by the crests of the new sound. Both sounds must have the same amplitude as well as frequency (or wavelength) for this to work. The result, in principle, is silence: no sound. To get sound back, one of the two original sounds must be taken away.
On a grander scale, what if all sounds possible sounded at once? Would there be an infernal din of immeasurable magnitude, or silence? Every sound has a counterpart that is phase-shifted by 180 degrees, and thus if all sounds sounded simultaneously, all sounds must meet its counterpart and cancel it. Never mind other physical considerations such as energy (heat in particular) and limitations of the conveying medium (air in this case). This is a Gedankenexperiment only. Bounds could, and perhaps should, be placed on the allowed amplitudes and frequencies of the sounds involved, just as the laws of physics place bounds on what events are possible. There should be silence. Nothing. To get something, at least one sound would need to be removed from the medium.
But even if silence is not the end result, we might expect a "wall of sound" in this experiment. It has been said that there can be no music without silence, since silence is what makes notes distinguishable from one another. A wall of sound arising from an emission of all possible sounds (within our chosen bounds) would have the same effect as a single ceaseless tone of a particular frequency: a complete lack of structure and contrast. If we were born to such an environment, and lived all our lives in it, would we not perceive such a wall of unceasing sound as silence? There is everything, and yet nothing. If this all sounds rather Zen, that's because it is.
"Something" versus "nothing" is found to be a false dichotomy when pursued by intellectual analysis all the way down the rabbit hole, if only because the rabbit hole is found to have no bottom. The one concept can only be defined in terms of the other, seemingly opposite, concept, with terms needing definition using other terms that in turn need definition. The concepts of something and nothing are distinct from each other, and have meaning, only on mundane, shallow planes of existence and thought. Don't look too deeply -- just go with it.
This notion can be extended to mass and energy, conceived either as particle or wave. The wave viewpoint of mass and energy brings us back to my consideration of sound waves, with little alteration of the parameters. So I'll focus on the particle aspect.
What if every cubic unit of space, no matter how small, was occupied by an identical particle of matter? A universe-wide continuum of matter would result, just as the real number line is a continuum. Just as individual points come to create a line, so too would having a particle at literally every coordinate in space create a continuum of "something." But this necessarily implies there are no gaps between particles, and without the empty spaces between particles, there can be no structure. Everything is the same everywhere, and any consciousness that could somehow be born into such a universe could not perceive such a continuum as being anything other than nothing.
Silence, or emptiness, or "nothing," is necessary in order to have "something." This is not to say nothing is something, which is another old idea. It is to say there cannot be substance without there being emptiness. A bowl has a use precisely because it holds an empty space within it.
These musings, however ancient, are the primary reason why I am unmoved by arguments that a god is necessary to explain why there is "something" rather than "nothing." Remove some particles from my aforementioned continuum of particles, and suddenly there is structure, and there are reference points to steer by, and the idea of distance -- and space itself! -- is reified. And then with space there can be time, for all time is, really, is a sequential ordering of events -- events which must necessarily happen somewhere in space. We have a universe. And we got this universe by removing something (some particles in this case), rather than adding something. No miracle breathed life into this universe, just a subtraction of some stuff that was already present in abundance.
Is this just semantic horseplay? I don't think so, as what we are considering here is not so much the true nature of reality, but rather our perception of it. All points in space being occupied by identical particles would be indistinguishable from nothing, at least to the senses of anything living within such a reality. Of course, no physical creature could live in such a reality, but just imagine one's "awareness" being immersed in this realm, still magically able to see, hear, and so on. We would perceive nothing, and if we knew of nothing else, it's unlikely we could even conceive of anything else.
Coming back to Earth, consider how easy is it for us to lapse into thinking of the space in the Grand Canyon as being purely empty? It's a natural thing to do, notwithstanding the air, dust, microbes, radiation, neutrinos, and other no-see-'ems brimming over in that canyon.
To ascribe miraculous attributes to there being "something" is to ascribe the same attributes to "nothing." They are two sides of the same, single coin. We are then just saying both "something" and "nothing" are miraculous, which is utterly devoid of significance because it destroys the very concept of significance itself.
What is there then? What is reality? Just change and contrast. Yin and yang...
@hakima saidYou're welcome. I had to rush the ending, as time became short.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this here. I took screenshots of your initial post so that I can read later and process in segments...at least at first....
To summarize, my feeling is that "something" and "nothing" must necessarily both exist, independent of whether any "god" exists or not. This is something bigger than any god concept, I think. Like the integers.
To come to my conclusions I started with the almost trivial observation that the statement "Either something exists or nothing exists" is true, then proceeded to observe that each concept depends on the other for its meaning and, by extension, its existence. Have I proven a god does not exist? Not at all. But I feel like my above observations relieve any purported god of the responsibility of conjuring either notion into being. It's like saying god invented the integers: it doesn't follow, for the idea of the number 2 just is, regardless of the will of any god. Similarly, my observations I also feel relieve me, the atheist, of having to "explain" the origin of all things. What is, is.
Though atheist, I have a strong affinity for Buddhist and other Eastern philosophies.
@divegeester saidIt's a mind-expanding "something", to be sure.
I’ll have whatever you’re having.
Happy Friday 🙂
@soothfast saidThank you again for your thoughts. I read through your post. At first I was dismayed because I thought, “I will never understand this, it is substantially over my head.” I read your words that said, basically to not look too deeply. I don’t know if I did exactly that or if it were the opposite...I sank into it...and then I realised it...it was something I had chanted and meditated on many times. I found the meaning in the top and the bottom of my breath.
I've been thinking. Always perilous.
Commence with the logic of noise-cancelling headphones: an unwanted ambient sound of a certain frequency, such as the drone of a jet engine, can be cancelled out by emitting in equal measure a new sound of the same frequency yet 180 degrees out of phase with the unwanted sound. Each crest of the unwanted sound wave overlaps a troug ...[text shortened]... ficance itself.
What is there then? What is reality? Just change and contrast. Yin and yang...
You scientifically explained the Heart Sutra:
“Here, O Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.”
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Again, thank you for this.
Namaste’
Hakima
@hakima saidI'm glad you gleaned something from my ravings.
Thank you again for your thoughts. I read through your post. At first I was dismayed because I thought, “I will never understand this, it is substantially over my head.” I read your words that said, basically to not look too deeply. I don’t know if I did exactly that or if it were the opposite...I sank into it...and then I realised it...it was something I had chanted and medi ...[text shortened]...
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Again, thank you for this.
Namaste’
Hakima
What I intended by writing "Don't look too deeply" was to voice a usually unspoken -- even unconscious! -- understanding that the concepts of "something" and "nothing" in the everyday world are to be taken as simple accounting devices for quantifying things. Objects, ideas, etc. They are two distinct concepts in that sense, when not being driven to logical extremes. Having some money in the bank is most definitely a different thing than having no money in the bank!
I'm still pondering the question of what it means for there to be "nothing" -- i.e. an absence of everything -- versus its opposite concept of "not nothing." The opposite of "nothing" is not "everything." In mathematical logic the negation of "no X is here" is "some X is here," not "all X is here." This is perhaps convincingly explained by pointing out that "some X is here" is equivalent to saying "at least one X is here," which does not rule out the possibility that "all X is here" absent any additional information; but "all X is here" does not necessarily follow from "not no X is here" (forgetting proper grammar's admonition against double negatives for a moment).
My original, long tract above needs amending and additional detail. I think I banged it out in 90 minutes. I'm trying to get at the heart of the argument that there being "something" versus "nothing" is to be explained with a god figure. I did so precisely by pushing the notion of "something" to its extreme end so as to consider an all-pervasive "something" that becomes indistinguishable (or so I argue) from nothing. What I'm aiming at, really, is the dichotomy of structure versus non-structure. Contrast vs. non-contrast.
Without contrast there can be no ideas, no thought. You couldn't read these words on your screen if they weren't contrasted with the background.
I hope to come back to this thread later next week.
May I ask, hakima, how you came by your knowledge of the sutras? I know little of them, except the scraps that are meted out in books on Zen, Buddhism, and Zen meditation practice. I haven't managed to really get a meditation regimen to stick, and it's been well over a year since I did any meditation with regularity. When I did it, though, I could perceive definite benefits throughout the day.
@soothfast saidZen Buddhism describes the void represented by silence and space as being the source of all vibration and existence. But how could it? Ex nihilo nihil fit. Nothing comes out of nothing. But no, something comes out of nothing, just as you can’t have stars without space. Where would the stars be without space? Something and Nothing are two sides of the coin. One cannot exist without the other.
I've been thinking. Always perilous.
Commence with the logic of noise-cancelling headphones: an unwanted ambient sound of a certain frequency, such as the drone of a jet engine, can be cancelled out by emitting in equal measure a new sound of the same frequency yet 180 degrees out of phase with the unwanted sound. Each crest of the unwanted sound wave overlaps a troug ...[text shortened]... ficance itself.
What is there then? What is reality? Just change and contrast. Yin and yang...
- Joined
- 14 Mar 15
- Moves
- 29599
@menace71 saidEverything within our understanding has a beginning. The universe is outside of our understanding and may very well have had no beginning, and therefore no cause.
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Kalam Cosmological Argument
@menace71 saidHello Manny, welcome back!
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Kalam Cosmological Argument
@soothfast saidForgive my intrusion in this discussion with my own feeble minded thoughts. After reading this thread thus far I would think to ask myself this question.
I've been thinking. Always perilous.
Commence with the logic of noise-cancelling headphones: an unwanted ambient sound of a certain frequency, such as the drone of a jet engine, can be cancelled out by emitting in equal measure a new sound of the same frequency yet 180 degrees out of phase with the unwanted sound. Each crest of the unwanted sound wave overlaps a troug ...[text shortened]... ficance itself.
What is there then? What is reality? Just change and contrast. Yin and yang...
How might I understand how "something" exists in contrast to the existence of "nothing" when I am devoid of the knowledge and understanding of how even "nothing" did not exist before "something" did?
In my opinion the answer is beyond human comprehension.
Therefore the discussion is purely philosophical and speculative in nature, which is fine with me, that is until someone points out the obvious fact that I am ignorant, at which point I will disengage and leave you all to fluff it out on your own. 🙂