RE: [asa] (nothing) Meyer on C-SPAN2

"... happened to glance left just after
I got off the highway, and there it was ---- nothing."

Actually, there was a lot there- you just didn't notice it. Some of it is even invisible (air).

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Merv Bitikofer
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 6:13 PM
To: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] Meyer on C-SPAN2

Not sure what is so mysterious about "nothing". Why, I was just riding
bike home from work this evening and happened to glance left just after
I got off the highway, and there it was ---- nothing.

And then later on, on another stretch of roadway, nothing passed me;
and got home before I did.

(with apologies to Carroll & some of his great skits in "Through the
Looking Glass")

--Merv

Rich Blinne wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 4:50 PM, <gmurphy10@neo.rr.com
> <mailto:gmurphy10@neo.rr.com>> wrote:
>
> Nothing is "what thew sleeping rocks dream of" (Jonathan Edwards).
>
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
> That seemed entirely too short of a sentence for Edwards. :-) Here is
> the quote in context from the 1721 brain-buster treatise "Of Being"
> where Edwards presents his version of the Ontological Argument. Short
> version: since it's impossible to conceive of "nothing" there must be
> a non-contingent Being-in-General a.k.a. God.
>
> A state of absolute nothing is a state of absolute contradiction.
> Absolute nothing is the aggregate of all the absurd contradictions
> in the world, a state wherein there is neither body, nor spirit,
> nor space: neither empty space nor full space, neither little nor
> great, narrow nor broad, neither infinitely great space nor finite
> space, nor a mathematical point; neither up nor down, neither
> north nor south (I don't mean as it is with respect to the body of
> the earth or some other great body, but no contrary points nor
> positions nor directions); no such thing as either here or there,
> this way and that way, or only one way. When we go about to form
> an idea of perfect nothing we must shut out all these things. We
> must shut out of our minds both space that has something in it,
> and space that has nothing in it. We must not allow ourselves to
> think of the least part of space, never so small, nor must we
> suffer our thoughts to take sanctuary in a mathematical point.
> When we go to expel body out of our thoughts, we must be sure not
> to leave empty space in the room of it; and when we go to expel
> emptiness from our thoughts we must not think to squeeze it out by
> anything close, hard and solid, but we must think of* the same
> that the sleeping rocks dream of*; and not till then shall we get
> a complete idea of nothing.
>
>
> Rich Blinne
> Member ASA
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Received on Fri Sep 11 12:11:10 2009