Science
Related: About this forumThe Bridge From Nowhere
BY AMANDA GEFTER
The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy. So concluded William James in thinking about that most basic of riddles: how did something come from nothing? The question infuriates, James realized, because it demands an explanation while denying the very possibility of explanation. From nothing to being there is no logical bridge, he wrote.
In science, explanations are built of cause and effect. But if nothing is truly nothing, it lacks the power to cause. Its not simply that we cant find the right explanationits that explanation itself fails in the face of nothing.
This failure hits us where it hurts. We are a narrative species. Our most basic understanding comes through stories, and how something came from nothing is the ultimate story, the primordial narrative, more fundamental than the heros journey or boy meets girl. Yet it is a story that undermines the notion of story. It is a narrative woven of self-destruction and paradox.
How could it not be? It stars Nothinga word that is a paradox by its mere existence as a word. Its a noun, a thing, and yet it is no thing. The minute we imagine it or speak its name, we spoil its emptiness with the stain of meaning. One has to wonder, then, is the problem with nothingness or is the problem with us? Is it cosmic or linguistic? Existential or psychological? Is this a paradox of physics or a paradox of thought?
much more
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/the-bridge-from-nowhere
Edim
(300 posts)Jim__
(14,077 posts)The current nail is always the final nail, as I think Gefter implies.
"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it."
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether.html