The Philosophy of Nothing. Oh, and some Political Snacks.

Some observant, clever, but really rather unpleasant visitors have been complaining about the Blog about Nothing. "This blog is not about nothing; it is distinctly about something," they would say. "Your claims of nothingness are nothing but lies and prevarication."

Frustrated, I would look up "Prevarication" in my little dictionary, and to my horror I would find that these people were indeed calling me a liar, and even twice in one sentence. It would be very hurtful. I would cry - first a little, then more as they day went by - but then regroup and eventually get over it.

All this is of course hypothetical. I don't really have any visitors, let alone observant and clever ones, but my sad and basically fictional tale has a point. The last posts on this blog have all kind of been about something. And for that, dear visitors, I am truly sorry. I promise that this post - yes, this one you're reading right now - will be the last one about something before my mystical journey into nothingness (i.e. a really boring blog) really commences.

To be honest, the philosophy of nothingness is something I find very interesting. How about this quote by Charles S. Peirce from "Logic of Events":

We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility -- boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom.

Oh, and guess where you can find Peirce's quote online!

OK, so I have to be a little political here: According to Peirce, Nothingness is ultimately Freedom, right? What were those little words George W. Bush used the other day..? I think he mentioned Freedom once or twice in some speech a little while back (Actually he said the F-word 27 times in his inauguration speech, but hey, who counts? Nobody, but the important thing is that Freedom WON with 27 points over Liberty, which scored only 15. Apparently, freedom prevailed over liberty. But I'm sure Liberty will come back stronger some other time.) Either way, try replacing these words - which don't mean anything anyway - with "Nothing" the next time you hear him. (Example: "Today, I am proud to say that we have given Nothing AND Nothing, to the people of Iraq")

Anyway, this was my little philosophical musing of the day, I promise to stop being so pointful in the future!