Nothing is not nothing

Nothing is defined as: no thing; not any being or existence; and is opposed to a thing, anything, something. Hence, as an extension of the above definition, nothingness becomes a state of non-existence; worthlessness; utter insignificance; trifle; unconsciousness; also death. This is how most of us understand "nothing" and "nothingness". But, is nothing really nothing? Some say that "nothing" is not an entity, which exists. It is not that "nothing" is still "something," it is that "nothing" is exactly the absence of all things. It is a lack of a state and not a state in itself.

"Nothing" is only a concept, an abstract immaterial object that only exists in the minds of sentient beings. It does not exist in reality. Some others say that nothing exists because "nothing" is "something" that does not "exist" and therefore, because "something" is a state, that "something" is something that is nothing.

A few conclude: "Nothing" is logically possible, but we can never experience it because (a) we live in a world where there is always "something," (b) it is impossible to live in a world where there is "nothing," and (c) it is impossible to experience "nothing."

Therefore, a world of "nothing" is nothing more than a logically possible fantasy.

Leaving aside all that confounding explanations about "nothing," we have grown accustomed to believe that this world we live in and the universe itself, is said to have originated from nothing.

This is apart from those who believe that God created it, but also out of "nothing." Either way, if we come from nothing; and go back to nothing as death would imply; what have we to lose in life but "Nothing?" What have we to gain: Nothing? If we gain nothing, and lose nothing; then what is life about? It does not make any sense, does it; everything being nothing? Thus, the question begs an answer: Is "nothing" the ultimate reality; or perhaps, it is time we thought of nothing, as not nothing.

Many philosophers and prominent persons have said many things touching on "nothing". "The only true wisdom is in, knowing you know nothing," said Socrates, the Greek philosopher.

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing" is how, George Bernard Shaw referred to nothing. Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist said "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything,". And to conclude: Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence: Leonardo da Vinci.

Though there are many such quotations influenced by "nothing"; all have been said, based on the definition of nothing as afore given. None has felt it fit to think beyond, and ask: what is nothing?

Nothing

For some, the world may end with them, and then there is nothing. But in reality, the world will not end with any of us. It will be another four to five billion years at least before that possibility manifests. Even when that prospect becomes imminent, and real; nothing will not be nothing.

At most, it may be something not discernible, not understood. For, there is no such thing as nothing - like when we say: it's nothing; what we really mean is there is something, but it is not important. What is nothing? It is a great question because we can answer it on different levels. Let us say you walk into a room and there is "nothing in it" - no objects of any kind, no furniture and no people. It is just four walls, a ceiling, and a floor.

Even though we think of the room as empty, and say there is nothing in it, the room contains air. Floating around, in the room, are an unbelievable number of atoms and molecules. The air in the room contains nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapour and all sorts of other chemicals. But we cannot see all these atoms because they are transparent, allowing light to pass through and therefore not visible to us. So we think of the room as full of nothing, even though it is full of atoms. Then how do we get to "nothing"? Let us imagine that we go to the farthest, emptiest corner of the universe. This is as close to nothing as we are ever going to get. What we are looking for is a section of space that contains zero atoms.

No atoms at all - it is a perfect vacuum. Is that the best approximation of "nothing" that we have in our universe today? If so, it leads us to a deeper question: Is space that contains zero atoms - truly, "nothing"?

I suppose not. Space, even if there are no atoms in it, is "something." For example, photons can move through space even if the space contains zero atoms. So can gravity. So can radio waves. So can a magnet's field. And, we can measure space - a chunk of space has a length, a width and a height; and time elapses. In other words, empty space is a measurable framework that has the ability to transmit certain types of energy. So that cannot be "nothing" either.

"True nothing" would be truly nothing - no space. This is hard to get a grasp on, because we cannot imagine this kind of nothing. We have never seen it. It is, presumably, what existed before the universe existed.

Could we say then that "True Nothing" is that immeasurable, zero-energy, non-existent thing that did not exist before the universe, and all the space in it, came into existence? I do not think we could say that either because research appears to cast aside the widely held 'inflationary' theory of the origins of the universe, that it began with the Big Bang, and will continue to expand until a point in the future, when it will end.

Believe

Researchers into the subject believe otherwise. In stead, they are working on evidence to prove that there existed extremely violent gravitational radiation waves generated by super-massive black hole collisions in a previous aeon before the last big bang. They say that this means the universe cycles through aeons dominated by big bangs and super-massive black hole collisions. Prof Penrose of Oxford University, internationally renowned for his scientific work in mathematical physics, in particular for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology, believes that his new theory of 'conformal cyclic cosmology' means that black holes will eventually consume all the matter in the universe.

Theory

According to his theory, when this happens, all that remains in the universe will be energy; which will then trigger the next Big Bang and the new aeon. Professor Penrose told the BBC: "In the scheme that I'm proposing, you have an exponential expansion but it's not in our aeon - I use the term to describe [the period] from our Big Bang until the remote future. I claim that this aeon is one of a succession of such things, where the remote future of the previous aeons somehow becomes the Big Bang of our aeon."

Thus, the remote future of our aeon will become the big bang and the beginning of another aeon.

Well, all this might be Greek to the average reader. But what is significant about it all is that almost 2600 years ago, the Buddha had said everything in the universe is cyclic in nature - the wheel of Dhamma. All that comes into being in this universe, and the universe itself, will eventually decay and begin a new cycle of birth.

This is an ongoing process: the cycle of birth, growth, and decay. Science is just beginning to touch the tip of the truth in his saying. Hence, is there such a thing as true nothing? If so, who knows what that was like?

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; and keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two actions.

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