Month: November 2017

“Is” itself is empty because “is” is void of time, space and form. “Is” is empty before “is” is something. Empty in the sense of “is” being timeless, spaceless, and formless being causeless caused.

“Is” as an empty void is the container for existence itself and everything in and of the void. The raw stuff before anything in time, space and form has appeared. The primal creation before the universe comes into existence.

“Is”
a cell phone
silently waiting
to be turned on,
a blank canvas
before brush touched,
an uncarved wood block
crude hued,
a lump of clay
spinning wheel waiting.

“Is is isn’t isn’t” explained why it is impossible to get something from nothing because “nothingness” doesn’t exist. That put us in a better position to answer why there is something rather than nothing.

God’s true nature was defined as incomprehensibly wholly other. We’ll take that one step further to wonder if such a God could do the inconceivable by pulling emptiness out of a nothingness hat. If so, we’re hatching the impossible magic of a sourceless creation.

Let’s look at some possible implications of an original creation without an origin by a wholly other deity.

We’ll assume it is true that, “You can’t get something from nothing.” The reason, of course, is that something can only come from something, While that may be true as it pertains to the creation, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the original creation can’t be sourceless assuming the creation and creator have different natures.

The reason is that a wholly other God might be able to make the creation out of nothing? If we think that’s too far out, it might be because we’ve confused the created creation with the uncreated creator. What is true for the one doesn’t have to be true for the other. The artwork doesn’t have to represent the artist let alone reveal anything important about the artist.

Why couldn’t an incomprehensible God beyond definition pull off the equally unimaginable magic of creating a primal void out of nothing. Impossible for us. Maybe not for a wholly other God. First comes the blank canvas. Then the brush strokes of all existing things.

If this is the way things are, the creation can’t be traced back to anything as its source? An impossible possibility if there ever was one. Assuredly nothing short of ridiculously absurd.

An indeterminately discontinuous break between the creation and creator would result. Nothing of the creator could be learned from the creation.

Having no source the creation wouldn’t be like a photon ray of light coming from the sun where a ray of light allows us to make a causal connection with the sun. If the creation is sourcelessly created out of nothing, the creation is as good as causeless since it exists without having had an origin to bring it about.

A creation created out of nowhere made of nothing preexisting by an unimaginable God is understandably not something easily entertained by those who place a high value on rational understanding. While granted a void created out of nothing may be transrational, the notion may have enough explanatory power tucked inside to try to coax something out.

A sourceless creation could explain why we keep peeling off new layers of understanding without ever getting to the bottom of the way reality really is. There can be no bottom to the rabbit hole of rational understanding and empirical evidence if existence is truly sourceless.

We could play with notion that God is the supreme artist and the creation the ultimate artwork. Noting that what makes the supreme artist supreme is that no human artist has ever created something out of nothing.

We can also explain why the basic metaphysical questions of philosophy are always open to being overthrown by the next best theory. And why the prize of an all inclusive theory of everything accepted by everyone still remains a finger’s reach beyond our grasp.

If the void’s original creation is the “is that is,” it does make some sense to define it as timeless, spaceless, formless and causeless. Timeless because there’s no movement in the void. Spaceless because emptiness has no dimensions. Formless because the container is without contents. Causeless because something without a source can’t be said to have been created.

Presuming the sourceless void to be the starting point, the container, the cause, the stuff of existence, we may be a better position to ask how time, space and form could arise from the void. The void being the primal source from which all that was, is and will be spun.

“Is is isn’t isn’t.” Okay, what’s the point? The point is definitional. We’re going to clarify the meaning of “is” and “isn’t” for discussion purposes.

When we say “something is” we normally mean that something exists rather than doesn’t exist. When we say“this is that” we often use “is” like a bridge to connect two things together either to create a definition for what one of the terms is or show what it is like by creating a metaphor to suggest “this is similar to that.”

When “is” points to itself rather than to something else what is being said? “Is is” obviously sounds like it means existence exists. It does yet it is more than a tautology relating “is” to itself.

What’s being implied is that there’s something rather than nothing and whatever that is we’re a part of it. That awareness alone if pursued should trigger another question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” A great question needing to be answered too.

Sticking with our topic “is is” suggests a state of “isness.” A state existing before something is that might seem to be the foundation for whatever is. While that doesn’t explain why existence exists, it should allow us to say, “this is that.”

A very subtle point is being made. Unlike “is” there’s no “isn’t.” Saying something doesn’t exist is a meaningless statement because there is no nonexistent state for something to nonexist in. To think otherwise suggests we may have smuggled “is” into the equation. Like assuming there’s a black hole of “isn’t” in an otherwise undifferentiated universe of is.

Likewise the word “nothing” is devoid of meaning. “Nothing” doesn’t point to anything including itself. It is the reason why, “You can’t get something from nothing.”

What is “is” doing? Is is “ising.” Is’s job is to just sit there being a container for whatever else is happening. As if the “Wizard of Is” sits in silent meditation at the crossroads where being and becoming intersect. It’s the place where nothing else is happening like the hub of the wheel cranking out rounds of existence into existence.

To reiterate there’s no such thing as “nonexistence.” No nothingness, no state of isn’t, no “notness,” to oppose “is” because “is” is all there is.

While “isn’t” is a term pointing nowhere, “is” points both to itself as well as to something else. Having parted the grass, we hopefully now have a better understanding for the way things really are.

In order to know who I am I’d need to know where I am if where I am is reality. Since if nothing is outside the scope of whatever reality is, everything that is part of reality would share its basic nature.

To help us find the basic nature of reality let’s try asking, “What was before the beginning began?”

That question seems loaded because it is possible reality has always existed like a circle without a beginning or end. If so, reality does not need a creator because if it has always been it never was created.

While the theory that reality is uncreated is plausible, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that reality hasn’t always existed, that is was created, that it had a beginning, and that it could have been created in a way to appear as if it has always existed.

There’s another problem with the “what is has always been” thesis. Who can explain why something that has always been never began. To say it is an unsolvable mystery is to beg the question.

For the sake of argument let’s haul in a creator we’ll call “God.” What kind of God could pull off creating the kind of world we find ourselves?

Normally we give God some attributes modeled on what we experience. God must either exist or not. The theist creates arguments for the existence of God and the atheist joyfully refutes them. This back and forth dance has gone on for millenniums getting neither side anywhere.

The notion that “existence” is applicable to God never gets questioned. What if existence only applies to the creation and not to the creation’s creator? To ask if God exists and not find evidence for God’s existence would then prove nothing.

Suppose there was an alternative to “God exists” verses “God doesn’t exist?” An alternative that assumes God is beyond human comprehension. Because God is unimaginable the third alternative is called “wholly other.”

“Wholly other” means concepts like “is” and “isn’t” simply don’t apply when it comes to God. God doesn’t exit. We exit. All along there was no compelling reason to assume the creator’s nature need be identical with the creation’s. Why couldn’t the creator of what exists be beyond it?

If God’s nature is unimaginable beyond anything we can know let alone guess, it makes little sense to say God is omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence in the sense of unlimited human power, knowledge and whereabouts.

If God is wholly other we can’t say God is a him, her, it, light, good, love, or life. Likewise God isn’t a supreme being, non-being or becoming.

We will be using “God” as a reference point to help us find the true nature of where we are as the basis for who we are.

Remember the three traditional metaphysical questions going back to ancient times – “Who am I; Where did I come from; Where am I going?” Thousands of years passed without much agreement on how to answer them.

There’s a more subtle reason why agreement is lacking. The questions seem to be loaded with hidden assumptions. Assumptions that could be obscuring the one question we should have been asking all along – “Where am I?”

“Who I am?” assumes I have a independent stand-alone existence separate from where I am. That I exist above and beyond the place I’m asking the question.

“Where did I come from” also assumes that I originated from a source other than where I am. That I need to look elsewhere if I want to find where I came from. Wherever that other place is for some unexplained reason mustn’t have a thing to do with where I am now.

“Where am I going” assumes that when I die I am going somewhere other than where I am right now too. It may be different or the same from where I came. Nonetheless, it must be different than where I currently find myself.

These last two questions help cement the notion and corresponding feeling that I have a separate existence different from where I am. That distancing creates a sense of personal identity, the theoretical peg upon which my fate and character mask hangs.

Whereas the “who” question assumes that there’s some substantive who to find. A who that may be in this universe but probably not of it. Have we inadvertently disconnected ourselves from discovering where we are that could solve the who am I question?

If everything shares the same basic inherent nature because nothing is outside the scope of what reality is, wouldn’t finding where we are answer the who am I question?

Realizing the true nature of reality should mean what happens to one happens to all. The universe itself with all its evolving galaxies, solar systems, and inhabited places ought to have started at a singular moment now headed toward the same final end destination.

Finding the systemic nature of where we are should answer who we are if for no other reason than that’s what we are.

Where are we? What is our realm’s true nature? Is who we are where we are?