Some Thoughts on Nothing
Why the Universe Does Not Come From Nothing

Doug McManaman
Copyright © 2012 by Douglas P. McManaman
Reproduced with Permission

I cannot begin, as I would like to, with "Nothing is..." because nothing "is not". It is natural for us to inquire of the nature of things, for we naturally want to know "what" something is. But there is nothing to understand about 'nothing'. "Nothing" has no properties, "it" has absolutely no intelligibility, which is why "nothing" cannot be designated as an "it". When we speak of "nothing", we are not really speaking about "nothing", because there is nothing about which to speak when it comes to nothing.

Thus, "nothing" is not a terminal from which something or some change proceeds. A terminal is a principle, a starting point, or that "from which" something proceeds, and as such, a terminal is intelligible. But "nothing" is not intelligible, for there is nothing to know when it comes to 'nothing'.

"Nothing" does not endure in a way that can be measured according to a before and an after, for there is nothing to measure. Nor does "nothing" possess any kind of extension, for extension is intelligible, it is meaningful, but 'nothing' is simply meaningless - it has no meaning, for there is no 'it' when it comes to nothing. What is extended, either spatially or temporally, has parts, but nothing has no parts. Thus, two things cannot exist side by side "in nothing", for there is nothing in which to exist. Nor can "nothing" be understood "in relation to" something; for something cannot be "related to" nothing, because to be related to nothing is not to be related at all. And so it is contradictory and thus absurd to speak of something coming "out of" nothing, or something coming "from" nothing. What we are doing when we speak that way is we are imparting to "nothing" a degree of reality so that it can enjoy a "relation to" something. But whatever has a "relation to", the terminal or end to which it is related is not nothing, but something, no matter how unusual or mysterious it might be.

To understand anything at all is to understand the way in which it "depends upon" something else. But it is impossible for something that does not contain its own sufficient reason to depend upon "nothing". To depend upon nothing is not to depend. So, that which depends upon nothing is independent. What is independent does not depend upon anything other than itself in order "to be" and to be understood; thus, it is sufficient unto itself. To know it is not to seek to understand it, but to understand it already. And so, something that does not contain within itself the sufficient reason for its own intelligibility or meaningfulness, but depends on something outside itself in order to be understood, does not depend on "nothing" in order to be understood, for if it did, then it would be unintelligible, at least ultimately, since "nothing" is unintelligible; therefore, if it does not contain within itself the sufficient reason for its own existence and its own intelligibility, the sufficient reason is to be found in "something", whatever that turns out to be.

But, as was said above, if it is independent and sufficient unto itself, to know it is not to seek to understand it, because to know it would be to understand it, since the sufficient reason for it is within it or is it. To seek to understand the sufficient reason for it would imply that it is not really known at all, but misunderstood to be something that depends upon something other than it, in order to be understood. In other words, we are seeking in vain to understand it. It does not need to be understood in relation to something other than itself.

As was said, the sufficient reason for it is either within it or is it. If we seek to understand it (for example, as we seek to understand the universe by seeking its origin), then the sufficient reason for it is either outside it (outside the universe), or is an aspect of it (an aspect of the universe itself). It cannot be discovered in "nothing", for there is nothing to discover in "nothing". Furthermore, to say that the sufficient reason is to be discovered in "nothing" will imply that its sufficient reason is to be found within itself (ie., within the universe or some aspect of the universe). But, it is clear that indeed we seek to account for the very existence and intelligibility of the universe, thus its sufficient reason must be found within it, that is, in some aspect of it - if not outside of it, and if not in nothing.

Now, an aspect of a thing is a "part" of a thing. If the sufficient reason for the whole is found in a part of the whole, then that part of the whole cannot really be a part of that whole, but is in fact a whole unto itself. In other words, that part, which is regarded as the sufficient reason that accounts for the whole, is really the whole itself, or a whole unto itself distinct from the whole whose sufficient reason we are seeking. As an analogy, consider a puzzle piece. That piece of the puzzle is only a part; it does not provide us with a picture of the whole puzzle, otherwise it is not a part, but the whole puzzle. The piece of the puzzle is not the sufficient reason for the entire picture of the puzzle. The part only accounts for that part; it possesses only what it possesses, nothing more; to possess more than what it possesses is contradictory.

Thus, the sufficient reason for the "being" of the whole is not contained in a part of the whole. If it were, the part would not be a part of the whole, but a distinct whole unto itself - or it would be the whole itself, and thus not a part of the whole. The reason is that "being" has no parts. A being with extension has parts, but 'is' has no parts. What would it mean for "is" to have parts? Consider an extended whole that has parts, such as a pie cut into four pieces or parts. We can say that this part is not that part (this section over here is not that section over there). Thus, a whole with parts is divisible. But 'is' cannot have any parts, for that would mean that this part of 'is' is not that part of 'is'. But outside of 'is' is 'is not' or 'nothing'. Thus, 'is' cannot be divided. But a part is divisible from the whole. Thus, a part is, by its very nature, a part of a whole and exists because the whole exists. In other words, a part 'is' because the whole of which it is a part 'is'. And so the part does not account for the existence of the whole, but vice versa; for a part is less than the whole, and that is understood to be so the instant we know what it means to be a part and what it means to be a whole.

And so, the sufficient reason for the whole (for its very being or 'is') is not going to be found in an aspect of the whole (a part, or at some level of the whole), otherwise that aspect is the whole, not an aspect or part. If the sufficient reason is not the whole - for if it were, we would not seek its sufficient reason, we would possess it already in knowing the world - , then much less is it an aspect of the whole; rather, it is a distinct whole that contains what it imparts. Thus, the whole (i.e., the entire universe) is related to "it", and this "it" is not "nothing". What is it? It is the sufficient reason for the whole that we are seeking to understand. It contains within itself the sufficient reason for itself and everything else that is related to it as its origin. Whatever this is, it is not "nothing". It cannot be what we are seeking to understand (i.e., the universe), because the very fact that we are seeking to understand the whole (i.e., the universe, its origin, etc) implies that it is not the sufficient reason for its being and its intelligibility.

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