Nothingness

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”
~ Emil Cioran, Tears and Saints

The concept of NOTHINGNESS is extremely difficult to imagine or wrap ideas around.

How could there be NOTHING, not even the void of space, since a void could not exist if there were nothingness? What would nothingness be like if we could perceive it through vision, hearing, smell, touch?

Whenever I attempt to imagine nothingness, I think of a darkness that is darker than darkest black I’ve ever seen; no light or sound whatsoever, nowhere to move to or towards, like being buried alive six feet under or death itself. Yet, how could there be colors and darkness if there were nothing or nothingness? How can nothingness be described, explained or written about, if never experienced or observed? Even more imponderable, is the idea that “SOMETHING” could come into existence from this nothingness.

Note: I’m using NOTHING and NOTHINGNESS interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference. NOTHING refers to the absence of specific things, whereas NOTHINGNESS refers to a state of non-existence, non-being; an existential, all-encompassing void.

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
~ King James Bible

In the Bible quote above, Genesis depicts an earth that is void and without form, and a darkness upon the face of the deep. At first thought, we may be tempted to view this as defining nothingness. However, if we read it more carefully, it does not suggest that the earth didn’t exist, only that it was without form or void, and there was darkness upon it—the face of the deep. Does this suggest a state of SOMETHINGNESS, rather than nothingness? An invisible SOMETHING or unimaginable state of existence that remains dormant and imperceptible until somehow catalyzed into palpable, perceivable forms?

Note: I’m using the Bible as a metaphor, but being the philosopher that I am, reading between the lines is what I do. My preferred attempt to imagining nothingness versus somethingness, is to connect the dots between the ancient religious texts/myths and science. However, this can be accomplished only through inference and imagined correlations, not proof of any kind. The texts/myths describe creation or existence through storytelling, and science seeks theoretical explanations, neither of which offer proof nor decisive answers.

Cosmology:

David Bohm, physicist, theorized that there is an implicate order beyond space, time, and perception; a vastness of potentialities that has no physicality, until unfolded into what we think of as our objective, physical realty or explicate order.

Other physicists, especially astrophysicists who study the universe and cosmology, envision a singularity: An infinitely tiny point where the primal substance of the universe was once compressed into an infinitely small space of enormous density, until explosively expanding as a result of something we refer to as The “Big Bang.” At the very least, this helps us to somewhat conceptualize nothingness as being almost nothing. The singularity was an existence of “something,” but if or when we attempt to ponder the nothingness that existed outside of this singularity, we are catapulted back into the unimaginable.

Was there an inside and outside to the singularity? Did this tiny point of compressed something (singularity) have form or boundaries, separating it from a nothingness surrounding it? If there were nothing or nothingness outside of it, then maybe the human concept of an outside has no objective reality, which makes irrelevant the idea of boundaries and form. Yet, for most of us, imagining anything without demarcation is impossible.

Recently, I came across an article stating that electrons supposedly exist or have existed a billion trillion times longer than the universe. This is based upon extrapolations made from observing the short-term behavior of electrons, which don’t “appear” to degrade or self-destruct over time. However, the idea of electrons preexisting the universe does not make much sense, unless whatever created the universe, and ultimately destroys it (if that happens), is in the form of electrons. More specifically, the electrons would need to be somehow outside of the birth and death of the universe. The other possibility being that the primal singularity before the big bang, was composed of electrons. If this were true, it brings us to the imponderable question of, who or what created the electrons, or have they always existed, even before the creation of time and space, and the universe itself? Does this completely invalidate the idea of there ever being a nothingness, since the electron has in theory always existed?

All of this sounds bizarre. And besides, I would not trust any measurement that makes the claim that an electron or anything else could last or exist forever, or nearly forever, longer than everything else, including the universe itself. I’m not suggesting that any of this is impossible, but just that it cannot be proven through observation and measurements, since those activities are impossible to perform on something that is invisible and exists over an infinity of space and time. Deductive reasoning and extrapolations based upon short-term studies do not prove this claim to be true. For example, to prove the electron calculation and theory to be true, we would need to observe and study the life of an electron for at least 66,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. Who has time for that?

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the idea of “Dark Matter,” which astrophysicists theorize is an invisible substance of unknown composition that fills the majority of space in the universe, exerting tremendous influence on the dynamics at play on the observable and visible. In recent years, this has been offered as an explanation for what cannot be explained through physics, mathematics or measurements alone, simply because it cannot be observed and studied. Since we cannot perceive dark matter, just maybe—as Bohm implied—it is the nothingness (aka “implicate order”) that remains enfolded (invisible) until unfolded into the perceivable universe (aka “explicate order”).

Spiritual ideas and metaphors:

“Every sight, sound, sensation, and thought is the unseen manifesting as the seen. The tangible world, with all its complexities and changes, is the energetic presentation of the unseen, the dynamic expression of presence.”
~ Nic Higham

There are many myths, philosophies and spiritual ideas floating around as to the creation of the universe, but one especially comes to mind. Neale Donald Walsch, the author of the “Conversations with God series,” claimed that he was having an ongoing conversation with God through automatic writing, regarding the nature of God and the “apparent” reality we experience. The principle premise being that God split himself/herself/itself into two: an unmanifest (unseen) eternal presence, and a manifest (seen) version of presence. The manifest version being physical existence or objective reality, full of galaxies, stars, planets, beings, and anything else that is perceivable to us: creative projections of the unmanifest or eternally unseen presence.

I won’t digress into the supposed reasons for creating this separation between the unmanifest and manifest, since that is beyond the scope of this post. However, notice the similarity between David Bohm’s enfolded, implicate and unfolded explicate orders, and Walsch’s unmanifest (unseen) and manifest (seen) eternal presence. Different terminologies and perspectives, but sounding similar to the nothingness or unseen that becomes our seen, perceivable physical reality. This theme of the unseen becoming the seen is present in many of the world’s myths and religions, albeit often by use of subtle metaphors, which are and not always easy to recognize and articulate.

I now return to the Bible and the quote by Emil Ciora:

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”

I’m reminded of the exit or exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, after disobeying God’s command to not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent tempted Eve into biting into the fruit, and Eve convinced Adam to do the same. After taking a bite, they become conscious of one another’s nakedness or human form, and good versus evil. And for their transgression or sin of indulging in the fruit, God exiles them out of the Garden, to toil, struggle, and survive in a differentiated world of things (living and inanimate), creatures, and the pains and hardships of being in human form in a world full of both good and evil—leaving them with the “Free Will” to make choices and create within this world, almost like God, but not quite.

I’m more than tempted to interpret the Garden of Eden as a biblical metaphor of an unseen, unmanifested SOMETHNGNESS (maybe God), and EXISTENCE being a seen manifested world (earth) of all that we perceive and interact with, derived from a SOMETHING unseen. In a sense, I’m able to envision the Garden of Eden as an ideal or template of a perfect world, maybe even heaven itself, and our physical objective reality as being an imperfect, messy, complicated version of the Garden with many limitations and gaps awaiting our creative solutions, good or bad.

If we interpret the Adam and Eve story as a metaphor for a perfect NOTHINGNESS that housed a hidden SOMETHINGNESS that became our imperfect physical, human world, then this fits nicely with many of the scientific explanations, including Bohm’s implicate and explicate orders, the singularity, Big Bang, Dark matter, and eternal electrons; all of which can never be observed or verified.

Going in circles:

Interestingly, none of the spiritual myths/stories or scientific theories consider the possibility of there being an absolute nothingness, where nothing existed, invisible or otherwise: as in no implicate order, singularity, dark matter, eternal electrons, or intention/purpose behind it all (aka God). Even the most scientific and atheistic among us, rarely, if ever, venture into explaining a primordial, absolute nothingness that intentionally transformed into a somethingness, or a nothingness that randomly or accidentally became a somethingness, including a God. Bottom line is that it is imponderable for the human mind to conceive of such things, and so it is mostly ignored. The Bible, most myths, and cosmological science begin with the presence of something that was always there; indirectly suggesting a ubiquitous presence of infinite existence, outside of space, time, and physicality.

“The God-image is a primordial image, a universal pattern that is part of the collective unconscious and is present in all humans.”

“The God-image is not something that can be created or destroyed, but rather it is an autonomous factor that exists independently of human consciousness.”

~ Unknown Jungian author

Taking those two quotes together, Jungian psychology suggests that a God pattern is present in the psyche of every human being, even if not recognized as such, and extends beyond the human psyche as well. In one form or another, all of us, including the scientists and atheists, recognize—consciously or otherwise—a “something” that created and creates all that is, was, and will be, regardless of whether we call it God or something else. This alone, bypasses any attempt to consider the idea of an absolute nothingness. Our cause and effect mentality, valid or otherwise, ensures that a “cause” is the foundation of everything we believe or attempt to understand, universe included.

© 2025 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.