by David Fleischacker
Think of nothingness.
It lacks being. It is not intelligible. It cannot start or stop anything. It has no dimension and can contain all dimensions. It cannot hinder any dimension, any process, any number of events, occurrences, or things. I could create something in nothing but only if I were God. If not, and in reality, I can only build things in nothing from other things, hence not from nothing, and only with the right conditions and things and actions.
With nothingness as my backdrop or perhaps an underdrop, I can bring things together or separate them, even fragment them into a thousand pieces. I could create two identical processes that never interact. I could create two identical processes that do, and do so in a way as to make a new, a third process.
I could create a process with energy that generates more processes. Quarks combining into atoms combining into molecules combining into cells. And I could do this in one place, and in another place, and in another yet, with nothing in between. Let’s call it distance. But really it is nothing. It has no intelligibility, no being, it is no thing. So let’s call it space.
Yet I can take something, a tape measure, and measure the nothing between thing one and thing two and thing three. Or I could set up a reference frame, with a Y, a X, and Z axis–a more complex measure than a measuring tape–and I can even create different reference frames. In all cases whether one is using a tape measure or a reference frame it includes my sight when I am trying to locate thing one and thing two and thing three and the distance between them or their place in the reference frame. Can I get away from the fact that I am an observer that’s necessary for the measure? Is there a distance between thing 1 and thing 2 without the measurer? Is there a measure by tape without the measurer? Without me? Time would be similar. It is a measure of change. For both distance and time the answer is no. What distance could I use which does not involved me? All measures involve “me” as the seer or the walker or the counter. These cannot be done without the measurer. And to recall, distance is not really anything. It is the nothing between thing one and thing two, or between thing two and thing three, or between thing three and thing one. The distinction of one location from another in a reference frame is not really anything. It is a residue of the nothingness in which all of these things exist.
In our world, in this nothingness one finds energy that can be morphed into many other forms, then combined or separated in thousands of ways. This common “material” basis of all material things–a basis which seems to be equal to energy–makes possible an estimated differentiation into three quattuordecillions of quarks into quattuordecillions of atoms into quattuorvigintillions of molecules into nonillions of cells. The integrations and combinations of these are staggering!!! And each one of these things are distinct individuals at concrete places and times–all of which as such contain the residue of the nothingness “from which” or “in which”–neither space metaphor really works for nothing–all things are made and exist, and this can keep expanding in proportion to the quantity of energy which can be formed into distinct forms, each form of which then creates boundaries and ways of interacting, all aimed at further differentiation and integration. It is like the form of an atom that can only absorb certain photons. It is like helium and carbon, which can interact with other atoms in their own ways.
Higher form schemas sublate lower forms into higher intelligibility, both within a creature’s own existence but also with increasing ranges and scopes to other creatures. A bird’s motor-sensory integrations and operations not only integrate the body of the bird, but come to order the extrinsic world. They build nests. A bear’s motor-sensory integrations and operations not only integrate their own bodies, but they schematically respond to the world in which they live and sleep. Wolves and songbirds transform the air into soundwaves. And with human beings this range and scope is an ongoing development in history that fills one with awe or a decline that fills one with dread.
This vast and massive matrix conditioned by the residue of nothingness between things, events, schemes and systematic processes is one that can become more intelligible, more systematic, all because everything was created from nothing and still possesses a residue of that nothingness. It is the absence of being that is part of every material being, and out of it can rise up a new creature from the Creator, energy bursting forth into new central and conjugate forms, some grow into creatures with developmental operators, expanding to the ends of the universe, even expanding that universe. Nothing hinders them from being individuals in particular places and times, as parts of continuums, growing into the nothingness which is the absence of all being, all intelligibility. And not only can they grow spatially and temporally, they can grow vertically. Nothing hinders them in their vertical ascendency from quarks to atoms to cells to sensory being. And even that special infusion of the spiritual into the material is possible. A child is born. And this world as we know it would not be possible if it was not created from nothing and possessed in each material creature a bit of that nothingness as a residue, as prime matter. That reveals the depths of the abyss of nothingness.