I think we are all aware of the imperfections of words, words being themselves concepts.

I think using the term 'nothingness' in a strict sense is problematic. I don't think we can conceptualize 'nothing'. Anything that we can conceptualize must be a 'something' in order to conceptualize it. The very act of conceptualization is creating something in the mind, no matter how abstract it may be. 'Nothing' would have no color, neither white nor black, would have no shape or form, and would have no dimension nor would it relate to any experience or any construct which the mind could create. It would be akin to non-consciousness.

All these words we use to descrube 'nothingness' should be understood as a conceptual convienience and not as a true description of the non-conceptual nature of the subject itself. I don't agree that we can conceptualize 'nothing'.

In Buddhism there is the Void, from which all existence appears. This Void cannot be described and is usually alluded to as "not something, not nothing, not not-something, not not-nothiing", etc. This Void cannot be percieved by the conscious mind.

There is a saying, "woe to him who mistakes the pointing finger for the Moon". The lamp sitting here on my computer desk we conceptualize as 'lamp', but in fact it is not a lamp in reality. It is a form. We can only understand this reality, the thing itself, when we put an end to concept within our mind. Then it resumes its true reality for us. When we try to portray concepts, we are in a sense fooling ourselves. There is nothing 'true' about concepts. And when we try to conceptualize that which is beyond our mind's capability to conceptualize we are imposing our imagination upon that which is beyond imagination, and therefore we only percieve our imagination.

This discussion is interesting in its way, and if after all this if we come to the conclusion that 'nothing' cannot be conceptualized we may have learned something (from my point of view). Sadonis said, "The best thing a person can do is just smack you in the face". Probably that's what the Buddha would have done finally if we had brought this subject to him. We can manipulate words and concepts to our own purpose, quote various gurus and such (as I have done here), but a good slap in the face may be the best answer to this subject.

All this is a fine philosophical entanglement and exercise for the mind, but in the end it seems to me philosophy (like belief) poses questions which philosophy (and belief) itself cannot answer within its own construct. I think this is also true of the mind's capability of creating concepts.

Great post man! Very impressive!

SMK, your posts are always profoundly simple, yet simply profound. I really enjoy reading them.

Says who? Who says that if something didn't exist it wouldn't exist in the first place to deny?

Why is it that you accept this statement? Prove this statement to be 100 percent true and then perhaps I'll take a stab at debating it.

Basically what this boils down to is you accepting your ideas of "What is and what is not" and your "logical conclusions" but then pooh poohing everyone else's as "unprovable"


Prove to me first that "If something didn't exist it wouldn't exist in the first place to deny"

I suggest that "nothing" is one of the many exceptions to your rule.

Um what's the point of debating something proven to you as being 100% true?

That's not what I am saying. I am saying that he is saying the statement is a "truth" that we go forth from. But its really just his own personal belief.

I hold that nothing is the exception to his statement.

ok, but isn't saying that his statement is opinion just your opinion on his statement? Isn't pointing out that what has been presented as "truth" is actually opinion just arguing the believability of the claim?

Yes but he is arguing the believability of the initial claim by rejecting the parameters. Which would be ok but he sets up his parameters instead.

So since this is not an open ended philosophical discussion but rather one where he posits his idea as the correct one to challenge the other.

So as I said SAYS WHO?

He's accepted a truth that is really just the same as saying Nothing exists.

What we cannot think, we cannot think; we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. --- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logicophilosophicus

Thing and the thought that it is are the same; for you will not find thought apart from what is, in relation to which it is uttered. For thought and being are the same. It is necessary to speak and to think what is; for being is, but nothing is not.

---Parmenides

The only kind of substance is spiritual substance: namely, that which perceives and thinks. --George Berkeley

When a thing is denied, the very denial involves something not denied. ---Suzuki



Everything comes down to perception my dear and since perception is relative how can we be 100 percent sure about anything? (unless of course in my opinion you are enlightened in which you then know absolute truth).

"No perceptual judgement can ever be made with complete certainty." --- Nobel prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg.



It is my thread and so yes alot of it does boil down to what I say is logical or not but I dont impose it on anyone. But if you look carefully you'll see how I have actually agreed with what others have said on here. And the only thing I am stating is "unprovable" is the fact that you cannot say something doesnt exist for the very reason that if it didnt exist then it wouldnt exist (either "physically" or conceptually) in the first place to deny because what does not exist, does not exist therefore how can we name something that does not exist?

Also my point is that if nothing is nothing then it wouldnt be anything to label or conceptualize in which it is. From this deduction I have come to the conclusion that nothing is in fact something even if it is nothing.




Simple. What does not exist, does not exist therefore we cannot say or think (since words have their origin in thought) what doesnt exist.



I suggest you be a little nicer.

Yes, again I must admit that it was a thought-provoking post.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You are a sly fox.

I have maintained from the very beginning that this is only a personal belief of mine. In fact in one of the posts I even wrote that I recognize that everything I have said is wrong due to the fact that it is a belief and no belief is true by the very nature of what a belief is.

As Leonardo once stated: If you believe you know something, the only thing you know is your belief.

Once again, brave, and for the last time.

The label is something, behind the label is nothing, which is no thing. It does not exist. The label is disconnected from what it is supposed to be labelling.

Stop confusing the label with the labelled.

And tell me what nothing is? A soon as you define nothing you contradict yourself. This is my arugment. If nothing can be defined or labelled then it isnt nothing at all.

A no thing is a thing. It is the thing that is a no thing.



The point is that "nothing" cant be labelled for the very reason there is nothing to label. So explain to me how there can be a label for something that does not exist????????????????????????????????

So we are proving something about nothing, thus nothing is proved, or something, and ain't that
something? But nothing is nothing, unless its something beyond the edge of the expanding universe.
But it must be nothing, mustn't it? Say something.

Yes it is comparable. If you become knocked out, ALONE, and when you awake you do not remember the last few hours, how can you be sure you even existed for those few hours? You can't. You can only assume, because you've obviously existed your entire life. It is the same as before birth. You don't remember those few hours == you don't remember before you were born. Why assume you did not exist?


There are no important differences in the two. At least none that prove your claim that we do not exist before birth. The same logic can be applied to both, and the only difference you can bring us is the fact that there COULD be someone there to verify your existence when YOU are unconscious. Besides, OBE's, NDE's, etc seem to suggest consciousness is not a biproduct of the brain. And even if not EVERYONE accepts OBE's and NDE's, that's still more to support that consciousness is not physical than there is to support it IS physical.

Zero,

It's not comparable, because of other consciousness's witness to your existence prior to, and after, unconsciousness or sleep. What consciousness witnessed your existence prior to birth/conception? What consciousness witnesses your existence after death? With regards unconsciousness/sleep there is the continuity of the before/after consciousness that evidences our existence while in those states. There is no such continuity from the time before birth/conception, or from the time after death

To say one does is the purest speculation and in no way the same as the fact of your existence's witness before/after unconsciousness/sleep.

On the question of OBE's, NDE's etc. Why do these not happen constantly during unconsciousness/sleep then, if these states are identical to the state before/after death? If your answer is that we do not remember them, then why are they remembered at all?

Quit trying to twist things. I said if you pass out and NO ONE is around to verify that you existed for the time you were unconsciouss. It is the same thing. No one can verify your existence, not even yourself because you were not consciouss at the time, nor can anyone else if they were not around.




We can't name one if a conscioussness did, nor can we say none did, because we do not have the knowledge to know. Same as if you fall asleep alone. Who's to say you existed after you went unconsciouss. There were no witnesses.




That question is pretty irrelevant in my opinion. A better question is WHY do they happen. And can we prove they are brain halucinations or not? You're asking me to define a phenomena that we don't even understand yet. How am I suppose to tell why it happens at certain times, and why it does not at others?

I also never said that sleep was identical to the consciousness are identical. I used it as an example to explain that we DO NOT know if we did or did not exist before both. Both are similar as when we're sleeping, we have no knowledge that we are even conscious, which is a possability we seem to ignore when we look at pre-birth. What if we just do not know?

I wasn't twisting things. My original post on this referenced others witnessing your existence and I then addressed your concern about having no witnesses by referencing the continuity of your conscious experience before and after unconsciousness/sleep. In other words, you remember who you were and what you have experienced before unconsciousness/sleep.

To assume that your consciousness can slip from existence to non-existence then back to existence again would seem to me to be extremely speculative. The simplest answer - and Occam's Razor is often one's best defence against wild speculation - is that existence does not stop during these states, but continues and hence the continuity of the before/after experience.

Now show me where this is true of before birth/conception or after death and I will happily concede the point to you.

In a nutshell.................Nothing: A mental concept of the absence of anything. In that 'nothing' is a mental concept, it is something...it is 'a mental concept'. Does there really exist the 'absence of anything'? Yes. The absence of anything exists as a mental concept, and because everything that we perceive is a mental concept then 'nothing' is as much something as any other mental concept.

So...I defined nothing. And, in doing so...I have defined nothing as 'something'. A contradiction. Your argument is proven 100%.

The bold does not matter at all, because what I'm saying is you do not know if you existed or not during your unconsciouss state. This has nothing to do with BEFORE or after your unconsciouss state, just during. Same applies to before you were born. During that period, how would we know?



It's mostly an analogy to prove a point. But the logic still stands that we actually do not know if we existed during these unconsciouss states. We can only use knowledge we currently have to come to what we see as a logical conclusion. HOWEVER, our knowledge of what consciousness actually is, is VERY limited. So that changes alot.



It's not as much speculation given the fact that we have yet to identify what consciousness is, and if it is housed in the brain. Therefore, who's to say, that simply because we had no physical brain before birth, our conscioussness was non-existent? We'd need to define consciousness before we can determine when it exists or not. Right now you're guessing when consciousness exists or when it does not, based on a variable(State of the brain) that may not even have the relation to consciousness that you assume. Also, OBE's and NDE's which would also suggest that after death our consciousness continues. Therefore, that would support the "speculation" as you call it that suggests we exist before birth. Not only that, but so does documented claims of reincarnation. Some even well supported.

Well that's your opinion. I recognize that our ability to communicate nothing is hindered by our language limitations. Just because I can't convey to YOU what nothing is doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means you don't understand the concept.

Ex. If I try to explain the love I have for my child I cannot accurately explain it because I am limited by A. language and B. Your inability to really understand what I mean.

So just because I can't explain Nothing doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Your argument would be like saying since I can't explain accurately the love I have for my child, means it doesn't exist.

The argument is limited by your lack of understanding, not the fact that it doesn't exist.

Trying to "explain" nothing is what causes the confusion. Nothing exists. Its just beyond our ability to explain it.

I reject btw your statements of people who support the claim that once you try to explain Nothing, it contradicts it.

I also think they are limited by their lack of understanding. I can't make someone understand something they don't.

Well that's daft. lol



Here lets see if this helps.


When I die there will be....


How's that?

E=mc2...i must say you all ponder the question of nothing yet why has there to be nothing from death...our whole consciousness thats the receptor from the physical body...the life force the energy if you like..is conceived purely like the bag bang....thats why it should be allowed to be pondered on and dissected through say that death is the end and there is nothing AFTER is still a widely made assumption just like the on goings on life itself...if there was no reason for pure energy...a consciousness...why make it in the first place wot is the purpose of make biological life in the first place....is it a mis hap...is it necercery...wot does it achieve...? these are some of the key questions that need to be approached to...there are more questionable approaches that matter in deciding whats the BEST assumption or theory or conclusion-al construct to make from it all..to allow for answers,but its diversity to a question all is near limitless and fore ever gives a an abundant wealth of knowledge to learn from it, as everything the supposed oppersite to nothing is everywhere for us to examine and question....!

we have an opportunity to allow to question the unquestionable to understand the un-understanderble that has wholesomely allowed us to be....everything supposedly started from somthing out of nothing...so WHY and how.... this is for us to find out so that we have a more physical direct answer to these ultimate questions,yet will these answers still follow a continuum of constructional forces at play that ultimately shape our very existence, FOR i may add, FOR a REASON!

another good read is the newly Higgs bison
project for more constructive ways of approaching such questions..the only un meta physical approach to the meta physical....a answer to ur dimension to your biological constructs to anything..everything..and nothing...etc...

Taking the bolded section of my post out of context of the rest of it - especially the reference to the continuity of consciousness - does not make it irrelevant. Also I notice you handily ignored my reference to Occam's Razor...nicely done



This doesn't really say much. Our consciousness exists before sleep/unconsciousness and it exists after. Use Occam's Razor yourself to decide what is the simplest logical conclusion to draw regarding whether or not it exists during those states.

If nothing is nothing then how can there be anything to communicate??????????????



But your child is something and so is love. Do you claim that your child and love is nothing?



So I could say the same about God then aye? And well you can have faith that nothing exists but until it is proven to me that it does why should I uphold that faith?



But why is defining your love for you child so hard? It shouldnt be a hard task at all. Do you think I have never experienced love for a child? I have a younger sister and so I have some form of common ground.



So then how can we say it is there if it is beyond our ability to define or perceive it???????????????



Well good for you

An original attempt at least! Hahahahahahaa

Well what can I say. I must be modest, it isnt my argument originally but one I find fascinating nevertheless. Cheers for your post mate

Define the nothing which everything/something originated???

It musn't be an it at all if it is to be nothing

Well until science can prove 100% that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain then who are we to say that consciousness doesnt exist between birth and after death?

It is an act of faith to believe either way that consciousness is a product of the brain or that it isnt because science hasnt proven either. So the possibilities and wild speculations will run through.

If you cant remember what you were conscious of before conception/birth then you cant say there was 'nothing' because nothing is something. So you existed in some form or another even if you dont remember.

This confuses me, if you can describe nothing in your head, you can put that into words. That is where all our actions/words come from, our brain, unless you could telepathically speak to me (which is still speaking), then it still would be communicating with me. How else do things communicate besides uttering something?

Based on what I said, Occam's Razor doesn't even matter. We don't even know what consciousness is, so how can we make any logical assumptions about it. Our logic may very well be wrong because we don't know the nature of consciousness. You're assuming conscioussness is in the brain, therefore in your eyes, you use Occam's Razor to determine that when there is no brain, there is no consciousness. I did not take anything out of context.



How would I use Occam's Razor, when I don't even know what conscioussness is, or the nature of it? For all I know, consciousness may leave the body while we're asleep, and Occam's Razor would not make me come to a different conclusion, because again.. we don't know what consciousness is. The arguement isn't necessarily that consciousness does not exist during sleep, it's that it is in a similar state of that it was before you were born. It could be non-existent, elsewhere besides the body, in a state where we can't remember that time, etc. How can Occam's Razor force one to conclude that before birth there is no consciousnesss? That's a huge assumption due to the fact that we don't even fully know what or where consciousness is.

So, all I'm saying is, what if it is possible that when we are asleep, our consciousness is in a state that it was in pre-birth. However, when we are aware and awake in the physical sense, we can't remember anything about the state of consciousness we were in during sleep or pre-birth. This is of course obviously true for sleep, as we do not always remember. And like I said, what about OBE's, NDE's and reincarnation. Sure, you might not accept them all, but can you honestly say that 100% of all 3 phenomena's add up to ZIP?

Death is an illusion

Actually I'm more a coyote

You have a younger sister. That's not a child.

IF nothing is nothing then how can there be anything to communicate? There isn't. Its nothing. Its just you are trying to force people to explain something using terms that are designed for describing SOMETHING. Language is used to described SOMETHING not nothing.

Nothing simply is nothing.

And God has nothing to do with nothing. Faith has nothing to do with nothing. Nothing is about nothing and nothing more.

If you'd stop trying to "get a handle on nothing" and just accept that it is nothing, you'd fare better. But again, your inability to comprehend it it only proves that you can't comprehend it, it doesn't mean that nothing isn't nothing.

My brain exploded when i read this. But great post

If you existed before birth, then so do all future humans. They will either develop different abilities or
self-destruct in nuclear-warming. So existing minds must develop before all the future marriages.
Or the final lives must not produce further children, so the end-peoples' line must discontinue now. This
is against Hawkins' "History of Time" ,that time cannot change in its sequences.

To say we do not know what consciousness is demeans the studies undertaken in this field. We may not know all there is to know about consciousness, or know what we do with 100% certainty, but there are many resources which can provide us with insight as to the nature of consciousness. Here is a link to the Stanford Encyclopedia article on the topic. Knowing what we do we can apply logic to questions posed about consciousness.

I never stated nor assumed consciousness resides in the brain. However, it seems apparent the brain is a critical component in allowing us to experience consciousness. My reasoning therefore stands.



Whether consciousness resides in the body or not while asleep or unconscious, the fact of our continuity of conscious experience in the before and after states implies it continues to exist. If you wish to refute this please explain how consciousness could cease to exist upon entering the sleep/unconscious state then recreate itself - with the continuity of experience of itself before it ceased?

The reason I consider the before birth/conception and after death states to be distinct and different to the sleep/unconscious states is this lack of continuity of conscious experience. You do not have conscious continuity from before you were born and you do not have conscious continuity after you are dead. We can speculate that sleep/unconsciousness state is equivalent to pre-birth/post-death, but the fact of before/after continuity in the sleep/unconsciousness would lead us to believe it is not. There is no evidence that consciousness exists pre-birth or post-death (see below) while the implication that consciousness exists while asleep/unconscious means these states should be treated as not equivalent.

In the case of NDE's and OBE's, the experiences have been related by a living person. While clinical death may have been recorded in some (NDE) cases, and the person then recovered, in no instance has recovery from brain death occurred. Therefore can we conclude the individual completely died? I have experienced OBE's while asleep. From this I can conclude either I was dreaming extremely vivid, correctly detailed and lucid dreams or my consciousness existed in the sleep state.

Reincarnation is a hazy topic for me as I know little of the cases where this is claimed to have occurred. I have a belief that reincarnation may actually occur, albeit the 'self' of the consciousness may be wiped with the rebirth.

If consciousness resides outside of the body, then it's nature seems to defy currently known physics, therefore would that not make Occam's Razor a tad hard to use on something of this sort? I'm not sticking to the "non-existent" consciousness while asleep, I'm simply saying it may be the same, or a similar type of consciousness that we have when we have yet to be born on Earth. While we are in sleepless dream, we are not aware of our consciousness, so why shouldn't this be a possability before birth? We can't remember either. Perhaps our consciousness exists, but we do not experience it, or remember it while in physical awareness.



Prove this to me. In order for this statement to be fact, you would have to prove that when the brain dies, consciousness dies. And you can't, because we have not located consciousness in the brain.



Some patients have experienced OBE's as vivid as reality, while there was no detectable brain activity is going on. If we use our brain to experience reality, then explain to me how we can experience something as vivid as reality using no brain activity at all. Do we not need the brain to experience reality?



And why do you conclude it was a dream? What's stopping you from concluding you were outside of your body? "It just shouldn't be possible" isn't an answer, by the way. If you keep that mind set, anything you see as possible will never be discovered if it actually is possible.

So when do we know exactly the brain is officially dead?

Yeah, seriously.. I thought no brain activity = dead brain. And of course you can't recover from a decayed brain.... It's obvious that even if consciousness is not a biproduct of the brain, it still needs the brain to experience physical reality.

Yah Zero,
I am wondering if coroners everywhere are aware of this tiny bit of important information....This doesn't even sound right... He's dead, but not officially "completely" dead....(hmm....waiting on the brain to die)....

so you want someone to describe nothing to you brave? Well, let me try. How was that!

Love it!

FYI.

Clinical Death

Brain Death

More about brain death

Even more about brain death

An account from someone who recovered from clinical death...here

My insinuation that a person's consciousness may not be 'dead' upon clinical death of the body was not an indictment of the medical services. There are few accounts of people recovering from clinical death. My pointing to this was to highlight that accounts told by persons recovered from clinical death may not be evidence of consciousness's survival beyond death, but more akin to the OBE's experienced by those who find themselves doing this either as part of a meditative experience, or while sleeping.

While you could then presume the meditative/sleeping OBE's 'prove' consciousness survives death this is not true as the accounts are from those who survived. It would seem to me that the definition of death may be slightly ambiguous when applied in the layman's sense. Cessation of cardiopulmonary activity is recoverable from - albiet not often and the recovery is unpredictable. True death, in those few cases, can be said not to have occurred and so the mystery of what lies beyond is not illuminated.

Do you remember your consciousness before birth? Do you remember your consciousness before going to sleep?

The states cannot said to be equivalent. Continuity - and I'm sorry for banging on about this but it is important - is why.

There may be a possibility the two states are similar, or even identical. However it is much more likely they are not. Occam's Razor still applies even if we have no absolute answers.



The proof in this is that no-one has recovered from true, or brain, death to provide the continuity of conscious experience. In the few cases where NDE's have occurred and clinical death is recorded but the person recovers there could be any number of reasons why the death of consciousness was not immediate upon cessation of cardiopulmonary activity. This does not mean the person 'went to death and beyond' but their body was in the process of dying. Conscious death [my term] had not yet occurred.

Please prove that someone has gone through death...all bodily activities including brain function ceased...and then recovered to continue their conscious experience.



Just because someone is not hooked up to an EEG does not mean 'no detectable brain activity is going on'. In fact, I would suggest that having an OBE - and being able to tell the tale of it - is only possible while brain activity is persistent.



Please reread what I wrote. I said it was either a dream or an OBE. My mind is not set, as you might presume, but I am debating this based on evidence and trying to minimise speculation.