Nothing!

King Lear: Speak.
Cordelia: Nothing, my lord.
King Lear: Nothing!
Cordelia: Nothing.
King Lear: Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
William Shakespeare (Playwright, Dramatist), King Lear, 1606.
…why there is a world (something) rather than nothing…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Mathematician, Philosopher), On the ultimate origination of the universe (The Principle of Sufficient Reason), 1697.
There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.
Victor Hugo (Novelist, Dramatist), Les Misérables, 1862.
So I am going to assume what this question really means to ask is, “How is there something rather than nothing?”
Lawrence Krauss (Theoretical Physicist), A Universe from Nothing, 2012.
In his epic Dialogue, Parmenides, Plato describes how a meeting between Parmenides of Elea and his student Zeno of Elea went down as a young Socrates challenges them.
I just finished reading Parmenides. So, here is the thing, Socrates is considered the real deal in philosophy (even though we don’t really know if he ever existed), so much so that epochs in philosophy are identified as pre-Socratic and post-Socratic.
Plato is arguably the most revered philosopher of all time. Having read most of his work I can see that Plato revers Parmenides.
In his Dialogue, Parmenides, Plato describes how Parmenides pretty much schools Socrates on Monism. I say ‘schools’ because Plato can’t stop admiring Parmenides’ arguments.
So if Parmenides schools the incomparable Socrates and the unputdownable Plato is a fanboy, what does that tell us about Parmenides?
That he is the total real deal of philosophy and started a discussion that has captured the imagination of some of the smartest humans to have ever lived.
Parmenides first poached the subject of Nothingness and then opposed his own proposal so vehemently that he ended up creating another, albeit an oppositional, school of thought.
The smartest of our species have since tried to either answer what Martin Heidegger described as one of the fundamental concepts of metaphysics, or ask the same question differently to understand what the hoopla was all about. Heidegger basically said that this question was the fundamental question of philosophy itself. The question was/is:
Why there is something rather than nothing?
What interests me here is that human curiosity has led to so many individual and concerted efforts in trying to understand what this question even means. It is not fair to say that we haven’t understood the evolution of this question. From the perceived vaguery of Metaphysics to the incredible precision of modern Physics (no love lost between the two) entire generations have been dedicated to trying to understand the question itself and then maybe answer it as their respective cognitive equipment best allow.
Parmenides told us to start this epic journey so kudos to him for being one of the most relevant philosophers, pre or post Socrates, and now we must continue the quest to understand and/or answer this question.
A nihilist would probably look at this question and go — “Fuck this shit. I got better things to do. Like nothing.” But it’s not like we have a choice, do we? We cannot not continue this quest. As H.G. Wells once quipped:
The choice is: the universe… or nothing!
Originally published at medium.com on August 23, 2017.

