Nothingness.
Nothing is a pronoun that denotes the absence of pretty much anything. This could be in literal tangible measures or in the nontechnical aspect of a lack of importance, interest, relevance, or significance.
Nothingness can be seen as:
- The state of being nothing.
- The state of nonexistence or anything.
- The property of having nothing.
Philosophy has many different outlooks on “nothing.” One could wonder, “Why even bother learning about nothingness?” The existence of nothingness can be called an oxymoron, but completely disavowing such claims is necessary. In the literature of the West, there have been many pursuits in the quest to understand “nothing,” which has been treated as a serious subject worthy of research by many influential beings.
Western Philosophy
For example, one of the earliest philosophers, Parmenides, considered “nothing” cannot exist; to ever think or speak of a thing, one has to think or speak as if it does exist. To speak of it the past, it must still exist now and deduces that change cannot exist; there can be no such thing as “coming-into-being, passing-out-of-being, or not-being” (Russell). Thinking of this rationale does follow logic in a dialectical perspective, but we must also consider the facts of things that may be immeasurable or intangible.
Leucippus from the early 5th century BC tried to understand through everyday observation of motion and change — there could be no motion without a void. The “void” is the opposite of being, which is not-being. Wikipedia explains an absolute plenum, a space filled to the brim with matter, where no motion exists because of its fullness. It goes on to say that there is not a monolithic plenum, as existence consists of multiplicities of plenums. Invisibly small atoms from the atomists theory are then introduced by Democritus (460 BC — 370 BC). The theory allows the void to exist between them; macroscopic objects can come-into-being, through the motions of space. They, too, can pass into not-being by coming together and moving apart of their constituent atoms. The void must exist to allows this to happen or Parmenides would be correct about the frozen state of the world.
[On a side note, Bertrand Russell points out that this does not defeat the argument of Parmenides, but rather ignores it by taking modern scientific position of observed data (motion, et cetera) and constructs a theory based on the data; Parmenides looks at the idea through pure logic. Russell also believes that both sides were wrong in believing that no motion is present in a plenum, but argues that motion cannot start in a plenum.]
To counter Parmenides, Aristotle (384–322 BC) provides a point that escapes the logical problem posited by Parmenides. He goes to distinguish things that are matter and things that are space. He sees that space is not “nothing,” but a receptacle that can hold matter. Aristotle poses that the void (as “nothingness”) is different from space and is removed from consideration. This characterization of space takes many forms of discourse:
- Isaac Newton who asserted the existence of absolute space, which is supported by the modern quantum theory that space is not the void, that there is the concept of quantum foam which exists in the absence of all else; interestingly enough, Albert Einstein’s general relativity leaves no room for agreement with Newton’s concept.
- On the other hand, René Descartes sympathizes with the Parmenides-esque argument of denying the existence of space. For Descartes, there was simply matter and the extension thereof, which completes the absolute plenum thought process.
- This was later challenged by Blaise Pascal, but declines to overturn such beliefs. To completely defeat the ideas of Descartes and the Parmenides logic on “nothing,” Evangelista Torricelli invented the barometer which shows empty space appearing when the mercury tube was turned upside-down (the vacuum).
On another scope perceived, John the Scot (c. 815–877) used ideas from his interpretations of pseudo-Dionysius, which stem from pantheism. He classifies many things, such as evil, into the idea of not-being. This comes from the logic of good and evil being the polar parts of the spectrum in dualism. God, whom is good, can have no opposite since God, according to pantheists, is viewed as everything. With the idea of God, it is known that He created everything from “nothing,” where “nothing” is synonymous with this idea of God.
G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) brings “nothingness” into a dialectical light. According to Hegel in Science of Logic, the dialectical methods consists of three steps:
- A thesis is given, which can be any postulate in logic.
- The antithesis of the thesis is formed.
- A synthesis incorporating both thesis and antithesis is born.
No postulate taken by itself can be completely true, according to Hegel. The whole can be the only thing true, and that the dialectical synthesis was the means of which the whole could be examined in relation to specific postulates. Truth is constructed through this whole process, where the thesis, antithesis, or synthesis as stand-alone statements result in something that is in some way or other illogical. Hegel sees this concept through the dialectical means where:
Thesis: The Absolute is Pure Being.
Antithesis: The Absolute is Nothing.
Syntehsis: The Absolute is Becoming.
Existentialists, namely Jean-Paul Sartre, of whom is influenced by Heidegger (seen in [Notes on Boredom] on my Medium), define two kinds of “being.” One is être-en-soi, the brute existence of things such as a tree; the other, être-pour-soi, which is consciousness. Sartre claims that this second kind of being is “nothing” since consciousness cannot be an object of itself and has the ability to possess no essence. Equating nothingness with being leads to creation from nothing; hence, God is no longer needed for there to be existence (s/o to atheism ? ? ?)
Eastern Philosophy
Śūnyatā (emptiness), unlike “nothingness,” is seen as a state of mind in certain forms of Buddhism (s/o to state of Nirvana). Achieving this notion of “nothing” as a state of mind in this tradition grants the ability to be focused on a thought or activity at such a level of intensity that they would not be able to achieve had they been consciously thinking. Other Eastern philosophies may interpret the concept of “nothingness” through the idea of an egoless state of being, where one fully realizes their minuscule part in the grand scale of the universe.
