Thursday, December 16, 2010

Is Nothing Something?

Writer's block has crept into this blog today. Or maybe it's nothing block. I feel like writing something but nothing is popping into my head. So, being a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, I guess I'll write about nothing. The question is: is nothing something?

For nine years (and many more in syndication) the widely acclaimed Seinfeld television show anchored itself on being a show about nothing. Truly Vandelay Industries was something (in a weird sort of way), a Big Salad is something and most certainly an anti-masturbation contest is something. So all those somethings couldn't possibly be one big nothing, could they?

In every corner of the world, at some moment today, a person will ask another person, "What are you doing?" The answer, probably given more often than any other answer, will be, "nothing."

There was a movie in 2003 called Nothing, we have Nothing: the Uncyclopedia, websites at nothing.com, nothing.net and even nothing.org. Shakespeare made Much Ado About Nothing and Bill Clinton did nothing with Monica Lewinsky. Parmenides, a Greek philosopher, circa 5th century B.C. argued that "nothing" cannot exist by the following line of reasoning. To speak of a thing, one has to speak of a thing that exists. Since we can speak of a thing in the past, it must still exist (in some sense) now and from this concludes that there is no such thing as change. As a corollary, there can be no such things as coming-into-being, passing-out-of-being or not-being. Huh????

Wikipedia suggests that Nothing is a concept that describes the absence of anything. Is that possible? 

I think therefore I am. But what if I am thinking of nothing, do I cease to exist? Can I even think of nothing since a thought is something? Isn't it?

It's all so confusing and maybe, just maybe even more confusing than when I began many minutes ago...... with nothing to write about.

1 comment:

  1. Don't forget about Pearl Jam's Nothingman. Great tune.

    So, actually, you did end up finding something to write about, huh? I really enjoyed it. But then, I'm sure you'll probably just shrug and say, "It was nothing."

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