It's not anything, and it's not something, yet it isn't the negation of something, either. Traditional logic is no help, since it merely regards all negation as derivative from something positive. So, Heidegger proposed, we must abandon logic in order to explore the character of Nothing as the background out of which everything emerges.

Carefully contemplating Nothing in itself, we begin to notice the importance and vitality of our own moods. Above all else, Nothing is what produces in us a feeling of dread {Ger. Angst}. This deep feeling of dread, Heidegger held, is the most fundamental human clue to the nature and reality of Nothing.


Full article following: Heidegger: Being-There (or Nothing)

Current Mood: curious

Void. These two words are related. That is, the title of the post and the first word of the entry. They are synonymous to nada and nothing. Though I just wanted to write an entry to fill the gape so to speak between my last entry here and now. 54 weeks according to Livejournal. I suppose the end is neigh for this topic. Or perhaps not. Notice how related agape and gape are.

nadie, nada

Ambas palabras se derivan de dos formas del participio pasivo del verbo latino nasci (nacer): nadie, del participio plural nati, y nada, del femenino singular nata.

Veamos el primer caso: nadie proviene de la locución latina homines nati non fecerunt, que literalmente significaba personas nacidas no lo hicieron o, más propiamente, nadie lo hizo. Aparece registrado en español bajo la forma nadi desde el Cantar de Mio Cid y desde Berceo, usado sólo en frases negativas como nadi no lo hicieron, como figura en muchos casos hasta fines del siglo xv. En el Poema de Mio Cid se lee: No lo dizen a nadi e finco esta razon. Posteriormente, evolucionó hacia naid y naide, considerado como un vulgarismo, aunque fue usado por Santa Teresa. [...] que importa mucho que de sequedades ni de inquietud y destraimiento en los pensamientos naide se apriete ni aflija. (Santa Teresa de Jesús: Su vida). Corominas señala que se pasó a usar nadie como reacción contra el vulgarismo.

Nada, por su parte, se derivó de la expresión latina res nata (cosa nacida),que pasó al castellano como nada cosa y, posteriormente, nada.Corominas observa que expresiones como no hizo nada cosa se utilizan hasta hoy en el castellano hablado en los estados norteamericanos de Colorado y Nuevo México, rico en expresiones consideradas arcaicas por el resto de la comunidad hispanohablante.

Indeed even old Macbeth, though mad as a kipper, realised that life, whilst full of sound and fury (and that was before iPods) is inherently daft and ultimately signifies Nothing. And let us not forget, that 'Nothing' is so important that most of our universe - and the contents of a lot of people's heads - appears to be made up of it.

It's a statement, an empty gesture if you will, a nod at the futility of ownership, and yet despite 'Nothing' being nothing, it is of course packed with millions of protons, neutrons and what have you, which is pretty good for Nothing.

Features

* A packet full to the brim with nothing.
* Suitable for ages 14 years+.
* Size: 17 x 9 x 7cm.

Yet there is a common attribute to nada, nothingness, ingenting in all the societies I have tried to cover so long.

The debasement of humanity, the common factor. Humans are destined to the eternal nihil.

However, this nihil is carnal.

The one that exists in the now and not the one based int he exterior of the flesh which harbors its ens in the Beyond.

Beleive it or not I just got out of my borrachera to write the following.

I do confess I am under the spirits.

Only to write that as nothingness is concerned we might have a word that denotes a neo nuance we've yet to reckon with.

The good old Southwest provides us: Denankius.

While denankius can trace its origin to mockery of the imitation of saying de nada with an Anglo pronounciation thus producing the lexeme denankius its ramifications are yet to be explored.

A closer research for the day of the post provides interesting results:

Denankius: 38 hits.

The oval-shaped zero and circular letter O together came into use on modern character displays. The zero with a dot in the centre seems to have originated as an option on IBM 3270 controllers (this has the problem that it looks like the Greek letter Theta). The slashed zero, looking identical to the letter O other than the slash, is used in old-style ASCII graphic sets descended from the default typewheel on the venerable ASR-33 Teletype. This format causes problems because of its similarity to the symbol ∅, representing the empty set, as well as for certain Scandinavian languages which use Ø as a letter.

The convention which has the letter O with a slash and the zero without was used at IBM and a few other early mainframe makers; this is even more problematic for Scandinavians because it means two of their letters collide. Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero with a reversed slash. And yet another convention common on early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail or hook to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive capital letter-O.

The typeface used on some European number plates for cars distinguish the two symbols by making the zero rather egg-shaped and the O more circular, but most of all by slitting open the zero on the upper right side, so the circle is not closed any more (as in German plates). The typeface chosen is called fälschungserschwerende Schrift (abbr.: FE Schrift), meaning "unfalsifiable script". Note that those used in the United Kingdom do not differentiate between the two as there can never be any ambiguity if the design is correctly spaced.

In paper writing one may not distinguish the 0 and O at all, or may add a slash across it in order to show the difference, although this sometimes causes ambiguity in regard to the symbol for the null set.

The Long Count calendar developed in south-central Mexico required the use of zero as a place-holder within its vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. A shell glyph --Image:MAYA-g-num-0-inc-v1.svg -- was used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates, the earliest of which (on Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas) has a date of 36 BC. Since the eight earliest Long Count dates appear outside the Maya homeland,[6] it is assumed that the use of zero in the Americas predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Indeed, many of the earliest Long Count dates were found within the Olmec heartland, although the fact that the Olmec civilization had come to an end by the 4th century BC, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count dates, argues against the zero being an Olmec invention.

Although zero became an integral part of Maya numerals, it of course did not influence Old World numeral systems.

The word zero comes through the Arabic literal translation of the Sanskrit śūnya, meaning void or empty, into ṣifr (صفر) meaning empty or vacant. Through transliteration this became zephyr or zephyrus in Latin. The word zephyrus already meant "west wind" in Latin; the proper noun Zephyrus was the Roman god of the west wind (after the Greek god Zephyros). With its new use for the concept of zero, zephyr came to mean a light breeze—"an almost nothing."[1] The word zephyr survives with this meaning in English today. The Italian mathematician Fibonacci (c.1170-1250), who grew up in Arab North Africa and is credited with introducing the Hindu decimal system to Europe, used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, which was contracted to zero in the Venetian dialect, giving the modern English word.

As the Hindu decimal zero and its new mathematics spread from the Arab world to Europe in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. According to Ifrah, "in thirteenth-century Paris, a 'worthless fellow' was called a... cifre en algorisme, i.e., an 'arithmetical nothing.'"[1] (Algorithm is also a borrowing from the Arabic, in this case from the name of the 9th century mathematician al-Khwarizmi.) The Arabic root gave rise to the modern French chiffre, which means digit, figure, or number; chiffrer, to calculate or compute; and chiffré, encrypted; as well as to the English word cipher. Today, the word in Arabic is still sifr, and cognates of sifr are common throughout the languages of Europe. A few additional examples follow.

The very idea that gave rise to Mayan Zero is a reckoning factor in various mathematical formulations and, hold your breath now, a result. Nothing is a result of arduos mathematical research.

There are even theories to be reckoned with. Null cancels and gives a way.

Wikipedia has more on the subject

Null

Null (computer), a special value in computer programming. See also nil.

Null (SQL), a special value in SQL.

/dev/null, the null device in Unix-like operating systems.

Null (mathematics), a zero value in several branches of mathematics.

Null hypothesis, a hypothesis in Statistics.

Null (physics), a concept in electromagnetism and theoretical physics.

Null cipher, a ciphertext symbol.

Null result, the absence of the expected result in a scientific experiment.

In spanish, the word nada has an interesting past of sorts. nada (del lat. «res nata», cosa nacida Diccionario de uso del español, María Moliner.

Something is born out of nothing while in english, its supposed translation, that is, nothing, means something else. 1 a : something that does not exist. Please refer to No-thing for further analysis and Nothing and the OED.

This itself is a semantic quagmire. However, present use of the spanish word shares similar connotations to its english equivalent. Though our prime interest is the use of nada as something that gives birth. Why would the latin language take a turn to the more nihilistic version of the english version? When did we start adopting its present meaning in the spanish language?

True to its origins, we must acknowledge though that while nada means something that does not exist it was born to mean that in its present state.

to say(ing) nothing of you + definite article the, adjective ending in ly or ing means the same as saying not to mention the fact that

Wikipedia on Nothing

Current Mood: bored

Zilch is the epitome of nothing. In our language, it is categorized as having no etymology. No one knows exactly where this word came from. Merriam Webster simply states that its Origin is Unknown. Two synonyms, however, are provided: Zero and Nothing.

Incredibly enough it is posible to say nothing. It is one of the most perplexing phenomena in the english language. Yet far from being it a unique experience in the english language we find that it is a universal phenomena reaching across most of the european languages. No digas nada beg some in spanish with various undertones and overtones when uttering said vocal strings. Some might just find a quaint irony in this as the requested locution might be interpreted as a sorts of incrimination in itself and it has been understood as such, make no mistake about that. In Swedish, the phrase has wide spread acceptance and it is a very modern request even to this day. Säg ingenting say the desperate ones.

Yet the question remains, what does one say when one says nothing? It is not just any triflling query here at hand because the consequences prove to be very dangerous when one says nothing hence ones curiosity.

Allow to me to dispel any notion that might be forming in your head about the phrase in question. It is quite obvious that saying nothing for the most part is used in surreptitious manners. Yet our concern here is not that but much higher quests await us.

This phrase is part of a handful of phrases in english were speech that is instructed to say nothing manages eventhough to say something. When one is instructed to say nothing one is apt to notice that one has been saying something though no words are being said and yet it doesn't take long for it to be heard. Such is the case that it is well placed position in the lawbooks of most the lawcodes of the english language and certaintly it isn't no recent phenomena.

Current Mood: calm

At the human level, the being, the ent, sentient aspect, nothingness is a matter of full interests to us since it encompasses a huge aspect of a persons life.

There is a curious manifestation of nothingness that is both a mystery and a threat yet alluring enough to cause wide spread damage to our three dimensional view of the world. Our St Thomas (the sceptic one) view of the world always demands tangible evidence that something is there. We readily accept that air exists because we have proof that it does, just try and stop breathing for an empiric study on the above statement for verification.

Somehow it must make a sorts of manifestation. So God is not really something that exists in the eyes of the scientific community at large, neither does most of the spiritual blabber jabber that has been said on the matter for the past, oh, shall we say 5 milenia now? You can't see it and if you stop believing nothing really happens, at the very best you turn yourself into a Nothingarian. So having said that one readily wonders how did old Sigmund Freud manage to convince the scientific community that there is a subconcious. Something lying dormant. You don't see it. It is supposed to be stored somewhere yet its precise location is all but certain. We simply believe that it is somewhere, readily accesible given the right circumstances.

It is this nothingness that baffles, yet what baffles even more is its capacity for storage. A ready metafor for this tract is a computer harddisk. Most people believe that they 'erase their information' yet that is far from the truth. What happens is that the information simply becomes unavailable, placed somewhere else, though somewhere readily accesible if need be.

Suddenly something becomes nothing, a transformation that leaves one astounded. Though even more curious is how the Scientific community and academia are ready to use, manipulate would say the more sceptic one, of this 'nothingness' to explain phenomena they don't understand yet give it enough weight to become acceptable though there be no direct evidence that such phenomena is 'empiric'. They use such compounds as "subconscious knowledge" or 'intuition' to explain matter not readily seeable, however, this not a diatribe of the scientific community and am afraid am digressing from the initial point, though rest assure that I was merely observing and this should not be taken as a critique of the Scientific community. Our interest is nothing but interest in nothingness and nothing more.

...

Current Mood: flirty

Actually, there is a confort in nothingness, though I suspect it has to do with the indigenous in me.

It is with great pleasure I find myself writing again on the concept of nothingness and the many meanings it has on the english language. Essencially, I was to write about two little english words, 'It' and the chameleon class changer word 'Do'. However, I figured I add a little exotic tinge to the discussion. I have before compared the meanings of nothingness in European languages, spanish, english and swedish but that was not exotic enough to make it really cool and make it look like there are really foreign comments on it. So today I just might digress a tad and veer off to cultural conceptions of nothingness in symbols used by mesoamerican cultures from my native country México. So this might be thought of as a huge and therefore not unimportant part of the topic at hand. I shall be mulling on the concept of zero as the mayans might of have thought it out.

Western conceptions of zero come via India so I will try and mantain this puny observation on the conception of zero to stricly pure mayan thinking.

I have in several older entries suggested and said right out loud that 'nothingness' is associated with evilness as we know evil to be, that is, fear. This thinking is clearly of the christian persuation.

I need to state this to clean the slate squicky shiny and western thinking free.

I must say it so because what am about to say has nothing to do with western nihilism or moral thinking with.

The Maya were not christian by any long shot. They had their own cosmovision ideas of the world. However, I must aid my reasoning with my imagination to fill the gap between them and I. So what happened when they came around to using the number zero? Zero has been argued to be a conception that the maya used for purely mathematical reasons but I reason to suspect that this is partly only a fraction of the truth being told. I have reason to believe, because proof I lack, that zero just did not occur by happenstance. It must of come out of a great deal of thinking on the ways of this world and to understand how this works. It was born out of observations, that much we know.

So zero is a representation of nothingness. I know. I said I was not to introduce modern conceptions of the meaning of zero and here I am doing it. A liar surely crossed your mind as the letters formulated that contradictory phrase but before you run in haste to judge me allow me to defend the offending statement.

Let the phrase stand by itself. I am aiding my reasoning with my pauperrísima imagination.

By now it should have ocurred to you that nothingness is religious and devoid free of everything else we have argued nothing has in the conception we give it in the western world. That is, the Mayans see 'nothingness' and give it a name. Zero, or in this case a symbol.

Right now I think I have discussed enough gibbirish to have killed any living cell out of your smart brain but rest assure I will be mulling even more on this very idea, though I give no given date for it, it could just appear out of the nothing when I do it....

ref: concept of zero.

Current Mood: ditzy

So in my last post I said thus:

I suggest that the word nothing be classified as a pre/proto form of evilness alien to us in this mortal coil.

Just for purely semantic reasons that have to do with the conception our brains have of these two words, I don't want to equate nothingness with the unknown. But for clarification purposes, allow me to expound.

The unknnown is something that our brains fails to grasp, i.e., it is something our cognizant selves have yet to name and come to see.

Nothingness has been established as that which lies beyond our grasp in the tangible physical world, that is, nothingness though untangible is that which we can imagine and "see" as there.

However, I am forced to draw a parallel to it since we have now added a new factor to the equation of nothingness and that is the notion that nothingness has something to do with evil and how humans go about in dealing/perceiving with the nothingness that surrounds it (or him or her if you will).

Evil is the fear that arises when humans deal with the unknown. The unknown is that which is not yet known. Intuitively I deduce that the unknown has to reside in the space we have thus far been describing here, as nothingness.

So evil, I conclude, resides in nothingness because nothingness houses the unknown, for where else does the unknown reside but there where nothingness dwells?

Current Mood: amused

The big question, of course, is why did a word like nothing ever had the need to come out/arise from our mouths? (a hole in itself) The even more curios thing is that it seems to be a universal need to express this quaint but unfamliar ground which we seem to know little or nothing about it. (no pun intended). At least from the european perspective, this word is quite frecuent. We have examined here the words which have a similar meaning in spanish, swedish and of course english. What is it that has compelled us to name the unnameable? (even though it is done so in the most simple of manners) What is the urgency to grasp this phenomena which so intrigues us?

We have mentioned that this word predates the first milenia, nothing (888. OED). And it should not be surprising that if it stood up then there is no reason to believe that our ancestors have dealt with it in one way or another even before that, perhaps in the form of another word, such as deathor space</i>.

But let us return to that earlier assumption. What was the need to name that which is unnameable? Surely it must be a need because there is profusely so much in the language about nothingness that it boggles the mind. In its spiritual sense nothing is akin to the inmaterial, we have at the very least suggested that.

Allow us to continue along this vein. The spiritual, because its origins seem to stem therefrom. Something not of this material world, however tautonic it may seem, is the clear opposition once the word is incanted. We will it (that which the word utters to) vanquished to the realm which is not of this one.

Supposing then that the word nothing, is a predecessor of evil. We assume therebey that nothing is a proto-malignant no-land. We cannot see it therefore the fear lets itself not wait. We are scared not to be seen in this world. What other greater fear is there for this material world then not to be seen? Hence the fight of good and evil can trace its roots to the word nothing and our fear thereby to find ourselves suddenly there, so in conclusion, I suggest that the word nothing be classified as a pre/proto form of evilness alien to us in this mortal coil.

Current Mood: devious

Nothing is an emotion as well.

I feel nothing is one of the rallying cries that those who like to pass the switchblade between their the skin and their blood. Curiosly enough this argument is used to explain the lack thereby of emotions hence the need to inflect pain to feel "something".

Yet the very phrase runs contrary to all logic. For at the very moment one uses the verb feel one can not escape its connotations that one is feeling something albeit one feels but that one feels is nothing.

The feeling can best be described as an empty feeling where one is cold and the sensation that something is absent is patently clear and palpable as well since one, once again, is feeling "nothing".

Just as well, the internet seems to be overwhelmed with people that feel nothing. In a search done today at 11:13 Mexico City time a search for the phrase "I feel nothing" gave the following results:

Results 1 - 10 of about 9,560,000 for I feel nothing. (0.12 seconds)

For the phrase "feeling nothing" the results were less:

Results 1 - 10 of about 5,180,000 for feeling nothing. (0.17 seconds)

One can indeed come to the safe conclusion that feeling nothing is a widespread emotion in this world we call ours, at the very least in the english spoken one.

Current Mood: pensive