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7-27-00
What is meant by emptiness? It can't be that there is truly nothing there. If that were the case, and the universe was just a flat, barren emptiness, then there's no way we could possibly be here. While our concepts and notions about self may be at their hearts false, something has to exist to give rise to these things. Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am.
Sure, we may be one and the same with the "empty" universe and interconnected with all of Reality by this emptiness, but there is still some kind of being for us. Thus it isn't that everything is totally empty, there just can't be any describable characteristics, because description causes some of the original form to be lost. However, there is still form there, incomprehensible as it may be. It's just not the form of anything in particular, but rather, form for its own sake.
In The End of Time, Julian Barbour tells about the "mist" of probability covering a multidimensional configuration space called Platonia (so-called because of Plato's description of form and reality in The Republic). By multidimensional, I don't mean 10 or 26 or even 100 dimensions, but on the order of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^30) dimensions just to describe the atoms in a few grains of sand, let alone the rest of the universe.
This Platonia is totally devoid of any recognizable forms, except for the mist itself (the existence of which I am somewhat skeptical about). However, being empty of things does not make it empty of meaning. On the contrary, whether or not the "mist" actually exists, every point in Platonia refers to the complete configuration of everything in the universe at one instant. If the mist is there, then in addition to having this very profound meaning, Platonia has a kind of topography as well, determined by where the mist lies thickest. This topography of probability determines which instants will be experienced and which won't, giving additional form and meaning to the "empty" arena of existence.
This configuration space cannot be separated by dividing it into individual parts. While some areas may appear quite different from others, the whole thing forms a continuous, seamless Whole. So what it is empty of is by no means meaning itself, but only of concepts. This is more the type of emptiness I was referring to in the earlier entry. The lack of anything explainable does not mean a lack of anything at all. Thus it is not the same kind of unending, cold, lonely darkness most people think of as being empty. Instead, it is pure and free from a contrived framework.
This freedom makes it quite beautiful, not cold and dark and empty feeling. The feeling of emptiness is generally a feeling that something is missing. Usually something very important like love or trust or meaning. These words, especially "love," are like "god" in that people have many different preconceived notions about them, but the true experience of love can't be adequately described in words.
Before, I said how emotions had become a part of the shell rather than part of a core because they're caused by external thoughts and words. However, I should have put it the other way, saying some emotions are in the shell because we can (or try to) describe and talk about them. Therefore, emotions far too deep to be expressed in mere words are still there in the center. Still part of the infinite space between the tiny, fragile threads of conscious thought.
Love for something in particular could be in the shell of thought, because it can be described, but love in its purest form is infinite. It, like "god," "truth," and "beauty" is one and the same with the incomprehensible Whole that encompasses everything, at the same time being encompassed by everything. Rather than being empty of the important things, then, pure Being is only empty of all the notions and concepts which, upon being described as such, are suddenly imperfect. The ultimate level of Reality is perfect, beautiful, and "empty." |
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