Saturday, January 05, 2013

Nothing 1

I'm not quite sure how it happened.  One day I was pondering Aquinas' third argument for the existence of God.  You know, it's the argument that something must have a necessary existence or else everything could cease to exist.

I don't have to exist.  You don't have to exist.  The earth and solar system don't have to exist.  Just about everything comes in and out of existence because our existence is contingent, not necessary.

But if the existence of everything was contingent, then it is possible that everything would go out of existence at some point, and then nothing would exist.  And, of course, how then could anything ever come to exist again?

Anyway, I'm not quite sure how it happened.  I only doubted for a moment, and then everything stopped existing.  I know, I know, then how am I talking to you. And you probably think you still exist.  I'm working on it.  But don't you see, it isn't even dark.  It just isn't.  There's not even emptiness.

Even Aquinas couldn't have appreciated true nothingness.  We're talking the empty set here, the null set.  That's not even zero.  We're talking "no answer." We're talking asymptote, trying to divide by zero.  It's nothing between the two brackets. Ø

Nothingness is less than space.  We're not talking about a fixed vacuum into which God puts stuff.  Einstein tells us that space expands as speed slows down and mass decreases.  I'm not sure what it means to say that space or emptiness can expand or contract.  I'm not sure what it means to say that the universe is not infinite but that space itself comes to an end at some point. But that's what's going on.

I'm in that nothingness beyond the emptiness.  I always pictured creation as God standing somewhere in the middle of Ø and pushing some button with an Ω on it, an omega or something. I suppose an alpha button with an A on it would make more sense but omega looks cooler.

And then it all starts.  I used to think that the first button would take it from Ø to 0, and then he would go from there, but I suppose it all just kind of happened all at once, from Ø to everything from the start.  I don't mean everything the way it is now.  I just mean from nothingness to stuff, from nothingness to an expanding 0 and a bunch of stuff in it.

But what do I know.

4 comments:

::athada:: said...

what does ex nihilo even mean? an attempt for our puny brains to explain the ineffable

Mr. Mcgranor said...

Thankfully the universe revolves around Christ; vindicating our boy Pelagius, in the context of Natural Law. However, and unfortunately for the heathen; the heathen must still come to Christ to be saved.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

We are only given the present, aren't we, as we cannot know all contingents, because we do not know another's choice or contingents..?

Existentialists believe in the experience of the present...which is existence, not nothing. And it is the judgment of choice among contingencies of/in human action within space/time.....and this fits well with pietism and "faith"....

Whatever "is", IS.....

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Whatever "is" IS, means that Nature is all that exists....and the attempt to understand Nature is what moves the sciences....

There is no "purpose" except what an individual "imposes upon" reality....and most in free societies are more prone to believe in a personal reality of committing to one's interests....unless one is particularly influenced by a "social conditioning" to interpreting reality....