Well, not really, but it is an excellent refresher on Genesis. Well, not really it’s …. well just watch it:
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle
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or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
As the currency in the Warhammer world, plays an important role in the economic system.
At 38 seconds in, is God wearing pants?
The Jocaxian Nothingness [Nada Jocaxiano]
João Carlos Holland de Barcellos
translated by Debora Policastro
The â??Jocaxian Nothingnessâ? (JN) is the â??Nothingnessâ? that exists. It is a physical system devoid not only of physical elements and physical laws, but also of rules of any kind.
In order to understand and intuit JN as an â??existent nothingnessâ?, we can mentally build it as follows: we withdraw all the matter, energy and the field they generate from the universe. Then we can withdraw dark energy and dark matter. What is left is something that is not the nonexistent. Let us continue our mental experiment and suppress elements of the universe: now, we withdraw physical laws and spatial dimensions. If we do not forget to withdraw anything, what is left is a JN: an existent nothingness.
JN is different from the Nothingness we generally think of. The commonly believed nothingness, which we might call â??Trivial Nothingnessâ? to distinguish it from the JN, is something from which nothing can arise, that is, the â??Trivial Nothingâ? follows a rule: â??Nothing can happenâ?. Thus, the â??Trivial Nothingnessâ?, the nothingness people generally think of when talking about â??nothingnessâ?, is not the simpler possible nothingness, it has at least one restriction rule.
Jocax did not define the JN as something in which nothing exists. Such definition is dubious and contains some contradictions as: â??If in the nothingness nothing exists, then, nothingness itself does not existâ?. No. First, Jocax defined what it means to exist: â??Something exists when its properties are fulfilled within realityâ?. Therefore, JN has been defined as something that:
1- Has no physical elements of any kind (particles, energy, space, etc.)
2- Has no laws (no rules of any kind).
Being so, JN could have physically existed. JN is a construction that differs from the â??trivial nothingnessâ? since it does not contain the rule â??Nothing can happenâ?. That way, Jocax liberates his JN from semantic paradoxes like: â??If it exists, then it does not existâ? and claims that this nothingness is SOMETHING that could have existed. That is, JN is the simpler possible physical structure, something like the minimal state of nature. And also the natural candidate for the origin of the universe.
We must not confuse the definition of the NJ with rules to be followed. It is only the declaration of a state. If nature is in the state defined by conditions 1 and 2 above, we say it is a â??Jocaxian-Nothingnessâ?. The state of a system is something that can change, differently from the rule that must be followed by the system (otherwise it would not be a rule). For example, the state â??has no physical elementsâ?; it is a state, not a rule because, occasionally this state may change. If it was a rule it could not change (unless another rule eliminated the first one).
Being free of any elements, JN does not presume the existence of any existing thing but its own and, by the â??Occamâ??s Razorâ?, it must be the simpler state possible of nature, therefore with no need for explanations about its origin. JN, of course, does not currently exist, but may have existed in a distant past. That is, JN would be the universe itself â?? defined as a set of all existing things â?? in its minimal state. Thus we can also say the Universe (being a JN) has always existed.
JN, as well as everything that can be understood by means of logic, must follow the tautology: â??it may or may NOT happenâ?. This tautology â?? absolute logical truth â?? as we shall see, has also a semantic value in JN: it allows things to happen (or not).
We cannot say that events in the JN must necessarily occur. Eventually, it is possible that nothing really happens, that is, JN may continue â??indefinitelyâ? (time does not exist in a JN) without changing its initial state and with no occurrences. But there is a possibility that random phenomena can derive from this absolute nothingness. This conclusion comes logically from the analysis of a system without premises: as JN, by definition, does not have laws, it can be shaped as a logical system without premises.
We shall interrupt a little in order to open up an explanatory digression. We are dealing with two types of â??Jocaxian-Nothingnessâ?: the physical object named â??JNâ?, which was the universe in its minimal state with the properties described above; and the theory which analyses this object, the JN-Theory. The JN-Theory, the theory about the JN-object (this text), uses logical rules to help us understand the JN-Object. But JN-object itself does not follow logical rules, once there are no laws it must obey. Nevertheless, I do not believe we will let possibilities to JN-object escape if we analyze it according to classic logic. However, we must be aware that this logical analysis (JN-Theory) could maybe limit some potentiality of JN-Object.
Within a system without premises, we cannot conclude that something cannot happen. There are no laws from which we can draw this conclusion. That is, there is no prohibition for anything to happen. If there is no prohibition for anything to happen, then, eventually, something may happen. That is, the tautological logics remain true in a system without premises: â??something happens or notâ?. If something occasionally happens, this something must not obey rules and, therefore, would be totally random and unpredictable.
We call the first JN randomizations Schizo-Creations. This schizo-creations, once they come from something without laws, are totally random and, if we could watch them, they would seem completely â??schizophrenicâ?. Of course with the first randomizations, JN is no longer the original JN as now it owns something, that is, the JN transforms. Because JN is not limited by any laws, it may eventually also generate laws, to which its elements – now itself â?? would have to obey.
Let us show how the random generation of laws can produce a logical universe: suppose laws are generated randomly in a sequence. If a new law is generated and does not conflict with the others, all of them remain undamaged in the set of generated laws. However, if a law that conflicts with other laws previously generated appears, it replaces (kills) the previous laws that are inconsistent with it, since it must be obeyed (until a newer law opposes to it). Thus, in a true â??natural selectionâ? of laws, only a little set of laws compatible to each other would last. That answers a fundamental philosophical question about our universe: â??Why does the universe follow logical rules?â?
Thereby, the Jocaxian Nothingness is the natural candidate for the origin of the our cosmo, since it is the simpler possible state nature could present: a state of such simplicity there would not be the need to explain its existence. And, by logical consequence of this state, anything could be (or not) randomized, even our physical laws and elementary particles.