“Is empty space really the same as nothing?”
What a vacuous question.
My understanding is that the vacuum is the most massive and energetic object in the Universe.
Space is packed solid with photons. God is light.
I.e. ...
Ping
The headline sounds line the name of a movie. Please tell me, is a dimension a place where you can go, or is it a measurement?
A simple magnet will exert force in a vacuum.
You don’t need anything more exotic than electric fields to explain much of what we observe. String theory and dark matter are dead end ideas.
This is about the science of empty ( vacuum) versus the ancient experience of mind/heart in its natural uncluttered state, traditionally called “Sunyata” by the Buddhist saints of India,”Mu” in Japan, and in the West” emptiness.”
The ancients saw emptiness of mind/heart , the nature of mind uncluttered by discursive thought , achievable only through the joyful discipline of Shamatha ( resting the mind in peace) meditation, as the gateway to both great compassion and ultimate perception.
The science of vacuum and what goes on within it, is about how we can perceive the physics of emptiness/vacuum, which is but one of many thousands of aspects of Sunyata itself, from which everything arises, its major characteristics are that Emptiness as a body of being (Dharmakaya) is actually unceasing, un-originated, unconditional. Absolute nature is the Dharmakaya, the ‘empty’, unconditioned truth, into which illusion and ignorance, and any kind of concept, have never entered.
The Science of Emptiness is full of concept, but has the possibility of great wisdom generated by the ultimate perception which can come from the cultivation of Sunyata through Shamataha meditation itself.
The two, science emptiness and the direct uncluttered perception of mind /heart can be joined.
Further reading:
https://tricycle.org/magazine/becoming-buddha-2/
In the words of a great musical physicist,
“Nuthin from nuthin leaves nuthin”
Roger Penrose, not to be confused with Jonathan Penrose. Penrose-Tal 1960:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Bd3 Bg7 8.Nge2 O-O 9.O-O a6 10.a4 Qc7 11.h3 Nbd7 12.f4 Re8 13.Ng3 c4 14.Bc2 Nc5 15.Qf3 Nfd7 16.Be3 b5 17.axb5 Rb8 18.Qf2 axb5 19.e5 dxe5 20.f5 Bb7 21.Rad1 Ba8 22.Nce4 Na4 23.Bxa4 bxa4 24.fxg6 fxg6 25.Qf7+ Kh8 26.Nc5 Qa7 27.Qxd7 Qxd7 28.Nxd7 Rxb2 29.Nb6 Rb3 30.Nxc4 Rd8 31.d6 Rc3 32.Rc1 Rxc1 33.Rxc1 Bd5 34.Nb6 Bb3 35.Ne4 h6 36.d7 Bf8 37.Rc8 Be7 38.Bc5 Bh4 39.g3 1–0
It’s an interesting topic that reminds us that our knowledge and understanding are limited.
I believe in things that I experience but that are not amenable to the senses: self-awareness, free-will, right and wrong, etc.. Some people can not explain these things and consider them illusory. However I experience these things as much as I experience sight. When I experience something directly, and someone calls it an illusion, I conclude that they are rejecting valid data. That can’t be science.
Perhaps some insights are to be found in the “void” of space.
*ping of interest*
If you think of X, Y, Z as colors instead of lengths then the appearance of what we sense as 3D space could emerge from no space. If we can figure out how to re-tune these colors we can jump to different locations in time and space without having to travel. That might hint at how particles separated by time and space can have an instant spooky connection.