NialScorva

Agreed.

You presume that reality exists apart from our perceptions. I'm not suggesting that there does not exist an objective world, rather I'm stating that everything that we can talk about and describe in a meaningful fasion, including the word and concept of "reality", is a description of our reception. In otherwords, there is nothing we can talk about that is beyond our perception an language, and thus reality as a whole is imperfect. Not an imperfect representation, but imperfect by it's very nature (though the same argument really applies to "perfection" as well). In short, we can't talk about anything outside of our language.

And this is the problem I've always had with nihilism, it declaims moral conclusions to make a moral conclusion. You say that you want to "mirror the existence deprived of its delusions and pretense", but say that you "deplore" intersubjectivity. Is this a delusion or pretense? It's certainly a moral statement, and as such is an expression of your desire rather than a statement about reality. My statement could easily be wrong, and I have no doubt that it's influenced by delusions and pretenses. However, trying to eliminate or deny delusions and pretenses only leads to contradiction. You're still trying to escape the subjective framework and get to the foundation of our perceptions. Nihilism, as you present it, is drowning in the very things it tries to avoid.

Laurentius

AVE

Posted by NialScorva:
Yeah, language; that’s my major. I am familiar with this theory with reality being reduced to language. An interesting poet once said: “the Romanian language is my country.” Beautiful. So what shall I infer now? I am language? Okay: I am language, you are language, he is language, my country is language, our countries are language… and suddenly the September 11 attacks occur. What killed those people? Language? Let’s get real, shall we?

Indeed, there is nothing outside our (inter)subjective perception and linguistic rationalization of it, but its massive permanence and effects on our existence makes us accept its material reality. The Nihilist that I have (recently) discovered that I am must accept this fact. Yet, I am a nihilist because (a) reality can only reveal itself imperfectly, and (b) it can be reduced to a rippling nothingness (the deeper one goes into the micro cosmos, the vaster hollows lie ahead).

Posted by NialScorva:

Yes, I am aware of this problem as well. Despite the fact that I praise reason so much, I must admit that I know my choices are fundamentally irrational. That is, I have just discovered that I am a Nihilist without much reasoning on it. Here I am trying to put things in order, and you know what? despite difficulties I think I can cope with the problems, because I am a new breed of Nihilist (says I): a Humanist Nihilist.

What does that mean? Well, first of all (as a thinker) I take note of the two principles, material and ideal, that make up the reality as we perceive it. Further, (as a Nihilist) I realize neither of them is preeminent, and neither of them can prove to be an ontological, epistemological or axiological foundation. Then, (as a Humanist) I notice that both are human constructs, and that observation should really be the foundation on which reality should build so that individual and collective desires may find their fulfillment. As it shows, the Humanist Nihilist is full of contradictions, but struggles to set up a system according to which human harmony (which is not monotony by any means) can be reached, in spite of all obvious and pervasive contradictions.

Laurentius

AVE

And now, for my faithful onlookers , I will demonstrate that the material universe is really nothing else but rippling nothingness.

The universe is finite.

It may be infinite in space, but as much as we know it, the universe detected by telescopes is finite. Our instruments can reach until a limited distance. Scientists may of course suppose what might exist beyond that horizon, but this would be just speculation because the visible (or rather hearable) outer space is limited for us.

It is finite in time. The age of its stars is finite, because if it were infinite, they should have become extinct already.

The quantity of matter is finite as well. Given the finite visible universe, its finite age and the finite age of its stars, there can only be a finite number of celestial objects in the universe, particularly stars. There are also smaller things, such as planets, comets, asteroids, dust and so on, but their quantity has been negligible so far. It results that the matter in the universe is finite.

The energy in the universe is finite. This is triggered by the facts above. A limited quantity of matter can only store limited energy. As the sky shows at night, there is little radiation emitted by the celestial bodies of the visible universe, and there is little radio activity too, comparing it to the vastness of the hearable universe.

In conclusion, evidence reveals that the universe is not as infinite as people regularly believe. As a matter of fact, it is not infinite at all.

Furthermore, matter is so scarce.

There is by far more void in the universe than matter. The scale of the observable universe is millions of millions of millions of millions of kilometers (1 followed by 24 zeroes). In this vast ocean of void, there is very little matter. If all the stars and galaxies were uniformly spread across the universe, then should be only one atom per meter cube of space. This is a void much closer to perfection than what the labs on Earth can produce. So, the outer space is a vast hollow.

The universe is becoming voider every minute. The rate of the universe’s expansion is so high that the calculations based on the data gathered so far prove that the dispersion will continue indefinitely, until there should be nothing left. Every billion years the universe is expanding by 5 to 10%. The total mass of the stars is below 1-10% of the necessary quantity to reverse the universal dispersion.

The microcosm is void too. It is well known that the picture modeling the atom shows it as a stadium and its nucleus as a pea. Compared to the nucleus though, the electrons, protons and neutrons are next to negligible. And yet, they are further divisible, revealing further microcosmic oceans of nothingness. There is energy, of course, but in a “closed” universe, as the one Einstein’s theory implies, the total of the energy in the universe is zero.

Particles and energy can be generated out of the blue.

According to the quantum theory, particles can appear purely out of void by “borrowing” energy from it. This quantum void sees different levels of excitation at different times, and can at one time generate matter or can fall into total stillness.

A finite and quite empty universe, whose total energy is zero and whose matter can be reduced to and fostered by void, seems rippling nothingness to me.

This is the reason why I am a nihilist and hold that reality and nothingness merge.

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

NialScorva

<a href="http://dragon.uml.edu/psych/rubin.html" target="_blank">From here.</a>

Do you see a vase or faces?

Laurentius

AVE

Exactly (though I’ve seen clearer pictures of this trick). Some may say there is a vase in the picture, others, faces – but in fact neither of the options is right. And yet, and that’s your point, both are right. But if both are right, is either of them right? Not really. And that is why reality is inherently contradictory. The Nihilist I am simultaneously accepts and deplores this evidence of the nature of reality and seeks for a coherent discursive rationalization of his view that can still be fruitful not only to himself but also to the ones around him.

NialScorva

Good points, but my thoughts tended torwards the seperation of figure and ground. You emphasis the sparcity of "something" and the dominance of "nothing". Many would see your post and notice that you describe the nothingness as the canvass, the ground, upon which the actual something, the figure, is painted. Those that reject nihilism would emphasise that point, and say that the something is what we need to pay attention to, for it's what affects us. I tentatively agree with this, but think that no matter which we choose as figure or ground, both are integral to interpretation. Also, I wouldn't recommend using QM as a support. Things popping out of nothing, energy in vacuum, which in electrodynamics is a material like any other (having permittivity and permiability), and the fact that you'll never find space that has strictly nothing in it all point away from your idea of nothingness.

How would you define nothingness? To me, it's the quintessential undefinable. To define it gives it a clear antecedent. If you point and grunt at something, you've given in empirical existence. If you talk about it, then you make it a linguistic or logical concept, but not necessarily an ontological one.

Laurentius

AVE

“He that converses not, knows nothing,” says an English proverb.
“He that believes all, misseth; he that believes nothing, misseth,” says another.
What does the term “nothing” in these statements actually mean? Is there a corresponding referent in the real world or concept in our minds for this word in these contexts? I don’t think so. I can’t consider “nothing” a factual alternative to “something”. I think that here “nothing” is a mere linguistic gizmo (knows nothing=doesn’t know anything/believes nothing=doesn’t believe anything), and means nothing.

Neither does conceptual nothingness institute a referent. Starting from the idea of reality as wholeness, it reversely defines nothingness by completely depriving existence of its attributes and substance.
(E.g. the Christian picture of the absolute nothingness prior to the genesis initiated by God, the atheistic a-spatial & a-temporal bareness the universe is expanding into)

In the case of non-existence I think the principle of tertium non datur (either A, or non-A) does not work. The old Indian theory of negation would be useful here instead, because it accepts three values: real, unreal and indescribable. According to this theory, between real and unreal there is only a contrary rapport, not a contradictory one. The quantum theory applies the same logic – the electron isn't just a corpuscle, and it’s not just a wave either: a third state of things must be accepted. Thus, I come to say nothingness is neither part of existence, nor its opposite – it is existence itself.

And the matter popping out of void, the “shapes” taking form on a hollow “canvas”, and the “something” apparently coming out of “nothing” in quantum mechanics simply proves that reality has a binary constitution, material and non-material at the same, like the deep and blank sides of a mirror, or the two pages of a single page). This is the reason why I believe nothingness and reality merge, in the sense that reality is manifest nothingness – and any other approach of non-existence is superfluous.

Laurentius

AVE

Gosh, I hate it when I get so cryptic.
And there’s this question that somehow I feel it’s crucial:
Why is there something rather than nothing?

Posted by NialScorva:
You are right to doubt the possibility of a definition – there is nothing to define. Nothingness does not exist (and this is probably the best definition one can get). I mean, Parmenides was right after all to define existence as everything that is and can be thought of: “Nothingness is unconceivable and does not exist”. It’s like the principle of tertium non datur – if existence is A and non-existence is non-A, then it results that, if A is real, then non-A is not only the opposite of A, it is unreal.

Posted by NialScorva:

In general “nothing” is rather a linguistic and notional convention that lacks autonomy:

Mathematically, zero is again only a convention. No wonder it comes (via Arab mathematicians) from India, where ancient thinkers produced the earliest theories on non-existence and fastidiously distinguished several types of it. Buddhists noticed that they seemed linguistic and nominal constructs, and not a more precise account of reality. Buddhists rejected the concept of non-existence as meaningless. The absence of an object, they say, lacks the ontological quality that the presence of the object shows.

So far so good. But has existence been deliberately created out of non-existence? Or has it sprung out of it all by itself? Or is there any relationship between existence and non-existence at all? Once you discard the idea of the divine creation and ignore religious dogmas there’s no alternative – you turn to modern sciences for facts & arguments.

Posted by NialScorva:

But what else is there to do? Return to fastidious religious speculation? Delve in subjective idealism? Cling to robotic positivism? Drift in the interstice?
Thanks to nowadays technology, scientists can literally split hairs, so why not take a peek at their work? We are not to contribute to their work, but at least we can contemplate the fluctuant depths of what we used to consider as being stably eternal & forever immutable – and realize why there is something rather than nothing. Because no one has ever noticed it, although nothingness has been around all along:

So.
The linguistic nothing is just a word, nothing more.
The notional nothing is an evasive thought, a hardly meaningful one.
The physical nothing is the vacuum, presenting various degrees of excitation at different times, which is believed to lead to the popping out of ephemeral particles that may “survive” if specific conditions allow it, a phenomenon which may allow the (either gradual or sudden)formation of the structures responsible for the evolution of the universe as we know it.