All I Can Be Certain Of

Is it possible to discuss anything without discussing something else? We talk about wars in comparison to previous ones, genocides in comparison to similar ones. We talk about art in terms of what came before, music in relation to its time. We apply various theories to all of the above and relate world news events to personal events. Dogs look excited and cats look indifferent just like humans. In the act of expression, we compare external forces and objects to the words we use to describe them - we get "caught red-handed."

We even, from time to time, like to compare the universe to a watch.

And yet in the back of our minds, we know that doesn’t quite work. Unlike a watch, the universe seems to have come from nothing.

Perhaps that’s the hitch with understanding the universe: The one thing we cannot seem to understand – in terms of anything (theories, patterns or anything else) - is nothing.

* * *

The more I think about it, the more it seems that the only thing that is necessarily true is the difference between 0 and 1. Nothing and something. Being and not. Other than that, anything we talk about can only be discussed in terms of ourselves and our constructs.

Fri, May 18, 2007  Permanent link