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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Something and Nothing

My friend Terence wrote a hilarious piece today about the eternal question of "Why is there something and not nothing?"

So, it dawned on me --- What is nothing? Do we know what it is? In our world, it seems, there is no place where nothing exists. What we previously thought to be vacuum in space turns out to be an endless stretch of dark matter and dark energy. Our universe is filled with something. So what is this "nothing" we think exists?

If nothing does not really exist in the universe, then why are we pursuing it? Where did this idea of nothing come from? Ah, therein lies the rub. Our concept of nothing comes from a lack of consciousness --- the space-time before our birth and that after our death. But in fact we are fundamentally wrong. The nothingness before birth and after death is purely subjective. Something existed before we know it and will exist after we cease to know it. Just because we know it now, does not mean its existence is dependent on our knowing.

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