What Is Nothing?
Ponder the beginning with me
“The real reality is the consciousness and is the base of the consciousness, the pure emptiness, the nothingness, from which all consciousness stems… It is the darkness from which the light comes. It is beyond the light … And from the light comes differentiation that we call the somethingness.”
Quite a mind bender.
This quote is from The Convoluted Universe by Dolores Cannon. As an investigative hypnotherapist, Cannon made it her life’s purpose to explore the unusual information she encountered regularly during her therapy sessions. This particular excerpt came from a section called “The Void”. The woman who sought out her counsel wanted to know more about an experience she had during meditation, where she found herself in a dark, shapeless emptiness. From her account, it was not scary, but still left her with many questions.
Although it resonated as soon as I read it, I had to go over it a few times to let the meaning seep in.
Modern science tells us that it’s possible that everything came from nothing, but this leads me to suspect that we don’t truly understand what “nothing” is. My simple explanation for understanding the “nothing” they speak of has always been this: Nothing is actually something, and this “somethingness” can be anything.
This is why the void is considered the ultimate source of creation.
Still, this is only a philosophical understanding. It seems that only spirituality has confidently filled in the blanks with consciousness, and with that, revealing its relationship to light. It is written (or verbalized, I should say, as Cannon’s books mostly consist of transcriptions of her therapy sessions) so plainly in this book, and I am always taken aback with its matter-of-fact assertions, considering the depth of what’s being said. It is that from consciousness, and from darkness, there is light, and that light provides the medium we understand as ourselves, our lives, and our universe.
I found myself in the void once, and it was a terrifying experience. Perhaps just ‘a’ void, one that my mind created, but nonetheless it felt very real.
Asleep, but oddly half awake, I was suspended in infinite nothingness. I was the only thing to perceive me, which probably doesn’t sound all that bad, maybe even peaceful to some. The best way I can describe it is that because there was nothing to perceive me, it was like I didn’t exist. Of course I was able to perceive me, so I existed, but that was all. It was all on me, and that was suffocating.
And that got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, this is all here because somewhere in the unfathomable ether, a tiny spark of consciousness got lonely.
I think the issue is certainly one of definitions. As a philosophy student I thought about this specific issue quite a lot, and got to a stage where I think I have the answer. The definition of 'genuine' nothing is really just that - absolute nothing. It does not contain the possibility of 'something'. If it did, it would not strictly speaking be 'nothing'.
Point one. Point two then acknowledges that there is clearly something (it doesn't matter what the something is, but there is something) - even if it's only me, that's still something. The fact that I am typing this is 'something'. That's self-evident.
Point three is acknowledging that 'something' cannot come from 'nothing' (which is the definition issue).
Point four then suggests that, therefore 'there must always have been something' - from a certain point of view the default state should be nothing, but it isn't. Logically, then, there can't possibly be a 'beginning' - because there can't one moment be 'nothing' and then the next moment 'something' - 'something' must have always existed. Thus, whatever it is that the something originated from is not nothing, but is itself something, with the power of creation - so the something is self-generative.
My final point five was a bit weird, and I suggested that the only thing 'relative to the nothing' which can exist is 'possibility' - meaning all of this 'something' is actually not a 'real thing' itself, but a 'possibility'. Meaning possibility is the only thing that can exist.
Nowadays I'm not too sure about point five. I think if something exists then everything exists, just not necessarily at the same time or in the same place, since that would create incompatibilities. To resolve that issue of infinity, the different possibilities for the arrangements/configurations of 'the something' must be separated - thus we get stuff like parallel worlds.
A deeper additional thought to all this is the action of 'time' on the something. I've come to think of time as the fundamental force - without some generative principle there wouldn't be any something. Time, then, is this generative principle - although it's probably not 'time' as most people understand it.
Anyway - there's my philosophical two pence there. This idea of nothing vs. something is one of my favourite philosophical questions - I'm glad I'm not the only one!
A few thoughts: I believe the Universal question is "Do I exist?" I believe this question drives all the myriad creative endevors of time, space, and experience. Every atom, molecule, and quantum event asks this primary question. Of course it all exists. The subsequent question is: "How" or in what way? The quantum dusts share the questions and answers, and life was born of this exchange.
Heh, heh... Even if the Universe didn't exist, wouldn't it exist as something that doesn't exist...
A lot of persons believe in magic - or gods - as magnificent large scale events. My model is "All" of life is stardust, observing itself in endless observance of the question ...