Fans of nothingness (I'm one, and enjoy the company of Nothing'arians, but it's difficult to organize a fan club around nothing) should enjoy this letter in a recent issue of New Scientist.
It's in response to a special issue on the nature of nothingness that I blogged about last month.
From Dave Howells
I found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p. 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum, and the noble gases.
Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an operation under general anaesthetic. I count down from 10, reach seven, and then wake up to discover that I am in a different place. What happened in between?
For my conscious awareness, absolutely nothing -- no time, no space, no matter, no emptiness, no experience whatsover.
Swansea, UK
True. But Dave couldn't "know" about this nothing until he became something again. So it's tough to put your finger on nothing absent a something to poke at it with.
[Note: I'm trying out the LinkWithin feature that appears below. Supposedly it does better at recommending related posts as it learns about a blog. Currently the recommendations seem more than a little random. But, hey, surprises are good.]
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