And so I reboot this blog after attending some conferences held by The World Science Festival. First was "Nothing: The Subtle Science of Emptiness."Paul Davies, one of my favorite authors was one of the panelists, as well as John Barrow.
Of course, the question of "Why is there something instead of nothing?" inevitably came up. Paul Davies shared his answer which rather stuck to my mind. He said that Nothing has only one way, while Something has a lot of ways to come about. So that is why there is something!
I like the last "what if" question of the moderator, where he followed up a question from the audience about the role of consciousness in all there is. What if--he asks while gesturing an inifinitely-scaled universe where the gradient will never be resolved--everything is just a reflection of humanity's yearnings?
I came home in a blank pith of "nothing" for I had a nagging question along the way: When a person dies, does he return to nothingness? Or does he return to Infinity?
It's best, I reckoned to myself--to keep it unanswered. That'll keep me yearning.
Links:
My Flickr Photo Set of the Event
1 comment:
It's amazing how science is now just coming to grips with what buddhist monks have believed for thousands of years.
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