NOTHINGNESS

Philosophy is a waste of time. I am lost in high school and I get to the U and I am stuck in a long line to register for courses and I end up in Philosophy I; Anthropology I and World History I.

I remember the History Professor, within the first minute of his introduction asking the 250 or so students:

"Who, here, had a coach as their world history teacher in high school?"

Everybody raised their hand. Unless both their hands were involved in activities that come easily to young men.

"OK. Lets start anew. The eighteenth century represents the 1700's. The nineteenth century represents the 1800's."

Everybody laughed, but I knew I had a chance.

I remember Philosophy I because I began reading Plato. The Apology, made me cry. I was hopelessly lost. The sophists were the bad guys and Socrates (I pronounced in my head with a silent 'e' until the professor straightened me out. I had always thought it was Hercules like Hercules Perot.)

I bring this up because I ended up in law school and the origins of law school end up in the school of the Sophists. And yet, you are supposedly taught by the Socratic Method.

It is kind of like the Republicans telling you that the Democrats are elitists. I do not know how better to describe it.

I remember thinking that in the Apology, there was never an apology. The bad guys were the sophists and they killed my friend. A friend who had been dead for 23 1/2 centuries before I was born.

There were 'schools' in the ancient world. Different perspectives.

There were the atomists who believed that everything could be boiled down to small particles, atoms.

There were those who believed that the entire perspective of the human poplulation was nothing but a dream.

Now there are many, many 'schools' in ancient Greek thought. So do not chastise me for ignorance. Besides, I am good at ignorance.

What can philosophy teach us? Well Socrats (as I perceived him and pronounced him), opens the Apology with the words:

"There are things beneath the earth and above the heavens that will never be understood in your philosophy."

Kind of like arguing with Fundamentalists who think that the world is 6 or eight thousand years old. Who actually have Fred Flinstone museums where you can see Fred mining with a dinosour as his digger.

My basic question of the day is: What is nothing? or What is nothingness?

Hold your two hands about a foot apart. What do you see?

There is nothing between my two hands.

But, when I do this, I know that is not a true statement.

There is air between your two hands. There is nitrogen, and oxygen, and a hundred different molecules depending upon where you are that exist between those two hands.

And there are biological entities between your hands. There are hundreds of different forms of bacteria and viruses. Living beings that you cannot see.

There are things like asbestos and dead skin and smoke and other things that are not 'alive' between your two hands.

Now we come to a Greek concept of the vacuum.

I f you take away from or ignore the water and nitrogen and oxygen, and asbestos and bacteria and viruses and everything else. Can you really say there is nothing between your two hands?

No, because there is space between your two hands and, evidently, if we are to believe scientists, space is something.

First, outer space is not a concept anymore. We can see it.

National Geographic, in its November issue, showed PICTURES of planets orbiting another sun 160 light years away from us.

These pictures were not 'artists conceptions' they showed three PLANETS orbiting another sun. And by telescopic time lapsed photography they actually show a picture of the arc of one of the planets.

I never thought I would ever see this in my lifetime. I was amazed.

This was not mathematical wizardry or deductions from watching the 'wobbling' effect of faraway suns. The procedure used for ten years to demonstrate that other solar systems exist in our own galaxy was categorized as the 'wobbling effect.' These are pictures and not pictures of 'dust', but of planets.

These scientists, astrophysicists, tell us that space is not Kalvin zero. It is a 'temperature of 3 degrees above', Kalvin. This is different from Celsius . The Kalvin 'thermometer' registers lack of heat to the point where there is no atomic movement at all.

But, no matter where you go throughout the universe, you will find some heat.

And of course, there is light, photons, or we could not see anything between us and what we are recording.

And there is gravity, whatever the hell that is, between us and the sun and the other suns we are looking at.

Space is not nothingness.

And space is expanding. The galaxies are moving apart except those like our closest neighbor that is coming toward us, or we are going toward it, or both.

Galaxies are moving apart and space is expanding.

THE ONLY ISSUE TO ME INVOLVES NOTHINGNESS.

What the hell is space expanding INTO.

Is it expanding into nothingness?

The Greeks asked simple questions. Dictionaries cannot answer some of these questions. Most of the elemental questions cannot be answered. Even today.

No one can answer the question: What the hell is nothingness?


(Note, this was the first blog where I received recommendations and comments at TPMCafe. December 7, 2008. I left it as it was. Typos and all. you can read comments at http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2008/12/07-week/