Thinking of Nothing...

What are you thinking about?

Oh, nothing.

Nothing? Really?

Actually, yeah. Nothing. Which is precisely the problem.

See, I was never one of those pretentious asses who just had to be "deep." Nor was I one of those who, under the influence of one substance or another, stumbled upon some mind-boggling topic of newly discovered profound depth.

But I always was a thinker; always inquisitive by nature. Not to the point of annoyance—at least I think not—but just naturally curious. After years of human interaction, reading, and general living experience, I’ve realized that this apparently comes with the territory of having a high level of intelligence.

I’ve always had limits though. Well, actually I have A.D.D., and, if I didn’t just get bored out of my skull thinking about something, I’d eventually forget what it was I was thinking about. Or at least replace it with something else, usually ridiculously mundane: Hey—what was that? Ooo, something shiny….

Now, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah.

Interesting thing about life in America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: you don’t really have to think much (well, not until you start to think why you don’t have to think much—which is pretty much why I take every stance on every issue I do, but that’s another topic).

Then I saw The Matrix. Yeah, I was one of those cats who saw past the action, special effects, and cinematography. Sure, I got a little caught up in the intricacy of the story, and admired the amount of detail the Wachowski brothers put into it, but what I really got into was the "oh, snap" factor. It made me think. And, although I was familiar with some of the topics, this was my introduction to metaphysics. Perception. Reality. Free choice or predestination? What is? What is "is"?

Then I realized the infinite regress and constant one-stepping that comes with philosophy, and pretty much got annoyed, ad nauseam. I’m not very idealistic and have a thing about practicality. Also, along with my short attention span I have a short temper and shorter patience level. So I distanced myself from metaphysics and philosophy, but not before making a brief stop at Epictetus to work on that little problem I admitted to a sentence ago.

This is also where my atheism matured. My father was an atheist, and, although (somehow) "Christian," my mother was never a Bible-Thumper—she was actually kinda New-Agey. I’m not going to get into details, but I progressed in my disbelief, until I realized—and admitted—that I am indeed an atheist: An explicit, strong atheist. With a penchant for polemics. Not an arrogant, antagonistic, belligerent asshole, but I wouldn’t exactly pass up a chance to talk about it. Preferably with someone at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Now, you’re probably thinking, "Damn, I thought you said you were thinking about nothing!" Well, yeah, I’m getting to that. See, funny thing about active atheism, you eventually get around to topics that lead to infinite regress again.

So, my big mind-fuck was the concept of eternity and infinity. Wow. I just couldn’t imagine no limits. Forever. Until I stepped outside of the limits I was trying to not impose on the concept. Then I got into what was, for me, a whole new ballgame of mind-fuckery. A topic so cognitively intangible I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it, and the more I thought about it the worse it got:

Nothingness.

What is nothing? Well, let’s see. There wouldn’t be anything to stand on, so the floor’s gotta go—and the ground beneath that. Pretty much means you gotta get rid of the ceiling and walls too. And, oh yeah, me. Ditch the whole Earth and solar system. Toss out the galaxy. Can’t be any oxygen—no elements of any kind. No dust, no protons, electrons, quarks. No matter. No "antimatter". No light. So you have this big, dark…no, wait…that’s something.

Which is the problem with nothing: As soon as you try to define it, you’ve got something. The moment anything comes in the picture—even the very concept of nothingness, because after all, that’s something—your "nothing" collapses into "something."

I’m not just being semantic.

Being a creature that lives in three (and a half) dimensions, I have a hard time shedding them. For some reason I get Star Trek in mind (and I never came close to being a Trekkie—don’t even really care for science fiction), and picture deep, deep space (which is something already). Nothing. Can’t be a vacuum though, because that’s something. But there you are, flying your space ship for miles through absolute "nothing." But it has to be something, because you have a measure for it—you just traveled through miles of it.

Nothing has no measure, no qualities, no attributes, no conditions. It is outside of and beyond dimension and time. Nothingness can not be anything—even nothing. No beginning, no end. No past, no future, no now. No boundaries, no edge, no center. No start, no finish. No emptiness, no space. No matter to fill up and become that lack of space. No nothing.

Think about that.

Nothing has no potential to be anything. Nor can it have a past—it couldn’t have once been something.

Which is where the mind fucking really starts, and quite unfortunately where the topic usually begins. The idea of nothingness is usually introduced with the discussion of a Creator or impetus to creation. What was there before? Or, consequently, what will there be after? This is where neither side of the a/theism debate has an answer. At least not a sufficient answer. I myself like to go a step ahead of nothingness, and get to the something involved. Once this is achieved I quickly apply Occam’s razor and take a "W" on luck that the supposition I subscribe to is easier and more simple. But it isn’t fair or intellectually honest to just "step over" nothingness.

Oh well. I’m certain this is probably some Philosophy 101 shit that I was just never fortunate enough to be exposed to by someone who’d thought it through and in turn learned it from others who’d thought it through, and there’s maybe even some damned good theories to "solve" it. But this is my thing. My great obstacle to full comprehension (not that I’m so delusional as to think such is attainable).

Socrates was brilliant, but this isn’t exactly what he had in mind when he said he knows nothing. I definitely can’t say, "I know nothing." I know a lot of shit (and I know I hate double negatives), but I just don’t know nothing.