Thought About Nothing Lately? (Making Time for Nothing)

SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mBwLY-gNJY
How are thought, language, time, and nothingness related?
Read: http://www.amazon.com/Selfhood-Authenticity-Winner-Erving-Goffman/dp/0791449009
For an excellent introduction to grammar and syntax read: http://www.amazon.com/Less-Than-Words-Can-Say/dp/0316575062/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF...
For more on Burke, I suggest: http://www.amazon.com/Rhetoric-Religion-Studies-Logology/dp/0520016106/ref=sr...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• nothingness
• time
• language
• not
• thought
• mystery
• Bateson
• Digital Communication

[Ontologistics]

Henri Bergson writes an excellent piece on the concept of 'nothing' in his book, 'Creative Evolution'. He concludes that the concept is an oxymoron.

[Professoranton]

@Ontologistics . Great reference. Bergson writes, "we are constantly going from the void to the fullWe find in it as much matter as in the idea of All." (pp. 323-324)

[batfly]

Suck vs Blow

I just stubbed my toe on your damn anti-table...Ouch!

IT Sucks! no wait... IT Blows!...

This is an example of apparently polar opposite words which describe the exact same event.

Fucking vs Lovemaking

The exact same act can be labeled with either word.

What's the difference?... The observer?

[Professoranton]

@batfly Sucks and blows are both actions, not objects like table or chairs. They name activities not things. & even if we grant sucks and blows as moral words they do seem to be polar words. e.g. Like someone can have to live down their words or some can have to live up to their words.

The question is/was: can you think of any moral words that are not polar words.

[thesunshon]

PEACE!

[andrewzot]

Dr Anton, this video is even more thought provoking than your usual vid.

[natedaug1]

Great video.

[shanoxilt]

@Professoranton

Well, if you want to be pedantic--- and I do XD ---, things are activities. They are the motions and flux of energy and atoms.

[Censeo]

@Ontologistics If you say that air and space is something in that box someone wrongly claimed had nothing in it, then what would something mean in the sentence "something is in the box"? Something is a polar word to nothing, and when taking them literally enough, they both become oxymorons.

[isolateslowfaults]

I have been aware of the Nothing ever since the Neverending Story showed it to me; thanks for exposing its insidious work even in the modern day! The Nothing never goes away.

[Israe5l]

Good solid video.

How about thinking in terms of numbers. We have the natural number [1,2,3,4...]. There is the correspondence of things and numbers. But with the introduction of zero, the whole idea of numbers change. We now have the action of "counting". "not counting" There is a change from description to prescription.

[BrianTheMusicMan]

The Nothing has always been suppressed, marginalized, ignored, and forgotten; it is so commonly interpreted as self-evidently understood. Hopefully profound videos like this will help in bringing Nothingness into the social pool of thinking.