Nov 15 2008
Weekend Philosophy: Alan Watts on Nothingness
Google from previous post
Alan Wilson Watts (1915-1973) was a naturalized English-American author, philosopher, theologian and life-long student of comparative religion whose work continues to be best known for a introducing Eastern theology in into Western thought. He waxed rather poetically in his time, hehehe!
What is nothing? Describe nothing. If you do so, you’ll find that what you see, hear, touch, taste or smell as “nothing” cannot in any way be described without relating it to “something”. In art for example, there is the idea of positive and negative space by which a person’s eyes will see a background behind an object. The background is considered less important than the object. Yet, without the background and the space around the object, the object has no form. Therefore somethingness and nothingness exist only because of each other.
Alan Watts on Nothingness
Video by YouTube member ReflectedFlicks
Wax in nothing to create something.
Stumble It!
Smile… Excellent post! The only comment I have is the obvious existential: No-thing-ness is sometimes easier to contemplate than nothingness– Later ~k
Nothingness as something we do not see.
This is post is sweet….Keep it Rude….
Christianity itself is really an imported eastern theology. This reminds me of how the early church fathers used to discuss the definition of evil. How do you define evil? We really can only define it as the absence of good, because evil is nothing in itself and can only be known because goodness is known.