These are my thoughts on some philosophical issues that are pertinent to Science Fiction in particular and many other genres as well. This is not a rant. There are some really fine rant authors out there on Wattpad. The ones I like are: @mrcharizard15. His 'The Book of Random Stuff' and 'A Teenager's Rants' are especially interesting and very current. Another excellent writer in this genre is awesomesauce82. His 'Rants 'n stuff is worth checking out, as are many of his stories: Game Over, Smile for me, and 'Herobrine: Takeover' to name a few are really good reads of his.

All rights reserved 2014 - All opinions are mine except where noted. No disparity or offense is intended.

Can there be nothing?

Nothing and infinity are much the same. They're theoretical mathematical concepts. There are no human experiences for either of these two ideas. Nothing means the absence of anything. This is impossible because of Quantum Mechanics, which tells us that even empty space is a thing called spacetime, or spacetime continuum. This actually goes back to Einstein's special theory of Relativity. Spacetime is like a fabric that stars, planets and everything else out there moves on or in. Spacetime can be bent, warped or curved by gravitational forces associated with mass. Although, equations can be written to represent this spacetime, no one really understands how it (how mass bends space) works. It just does.

Space can be void of matter, but it cannot be void of radiation or gravity, which means that it has some sort of energy field running through it. Even things such as dark matter or dark energy have quantum particles running around in them. Physicists call them dark matter or dark energy because they have no idea what they are and they're impossible to detect; although, recent efforts has indirectly detected dark matter.

Infinity is another mathematical term not rooted in human experience. Theologians talk about eternity as being infinite or non-ending time. These ideas are impossible because infinity is a mathematical concept that occurs when one tries to divide by zero. Physicists consider infinity to be an impossible idea because they have no idea what it means. That's where the idea of a black hole has caused a problem. According to the theory about black holes, the center of these things are supposed to contain a singularity, but if one tries to use Einstein's relativity equations to describe this, one ends up with dividing by zero, which means that no one understands what a singularity is. It basically means we don't know what it is.

Some physicists, such as George Gamow, considered infinity to have three types. However, there are many more. One could define infinity as a countable infinity, which are things like the digits of Pi or number of cardinal numbers. One could have an uncountable infinity of ordinal numbers, number of shapes etc. Some mathematicians talk about an infinity of infinities. There are also the infinities of calculus, which involves imaginary numbers, supernatural numbers and hyper real and surreal values. Then, there are infinity sets. All of these things are mathematical, but none of them are eternal. Eternity is also something we humans can't imagine, despite the term being used in many genres. The reason it's used in theology is because of the immortality of God. The only way that eternity could exist is if it's outside of time. I would suggest that it's a place where entropy doesn't exist. Entropy is a thermodynamic concept that measures disorder in a system. Decay is a result of an increase of entropy, which is what is happening in the universe. Eventually, the universe will be in complete disorder or simply consist of quantum particles. Entropy involves time and time is not infinite. Therefore, eternity cannot involve time or entropy. That's something that is outside of human experience.

So the bottom line is that there is no such thing as nothing, even though this is grammatically incorrect.

Thanks for reading.