Back on July 13, I posted on "Nothing". The post included various aspects of the use of the word "nothing" and the concepts associated with it. In a discussion with several professors recently, one asked why the default position on existence was nothing. Why do we assume that there used to be nothing and now there are many things and so how come the change? He suggested assuming there is always something and the burden of proof be on any claim that somewhere sometime, there wasn't anything. I think this is a helpful idea. The link above mentions several ways of looking at the word and concepts of 'nothing'. It mentions poetry, low-level jokes, and the book "Nothing: A Very Short Introduction", available for Kindle download for a low price.
That post does not mention that "nothing" in Google search gives 1.8 Billion results, far more than you and I together could look at in our remaining years. But that is the result I just got.
A popular philosophical question for quite a while, including now, has been "Why is there something rather than nothing?" This question is usually taken to be an invitation to explain why things, why anything at all exists. However, as discussed in the linked post, it may be that the concept of truly nothing at all in any sense is a fable, a mistake. Since no one has seen or found or proved even the possibility of such a situation, now or earlier or in the future, here or elsewhere, it may be that the concept belongs in the same place as we put mermaids and unicorns, ideas we cooked up that are without any grounding or reality.
Maybe our naive concept of "nothing" is a pipedream or a trick of language. Basic symbolic logic makes use of our idea of negation, putting 'no' or 'not' or the appropriate cousin of those words, such as 'never' into a sentence. Even current English usage puts limits on that move, holding that inserting a negative into a sentence already containing a negative changes the meaning to some positive: "I don't want no more mashed potatoes" can be taken to mean I want more. That switch from positive to negative and toggling back to positive is not upheld by all users of English. "I never want no more mashed potatoes " can mean the speaker is firmly against more spuds. In some cases, the more negatives piled in, the firmer the stance toward "No!"
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
