Being and nothingness, part two

Do we all define our world in terms of ourselves? Or are some of us less self-centered? Can we truthfully use any other benchmark to measure the universe? Can one borrow the language of another to describe the world? Theologically, can we accept the proposition that we are all sinners, because we are sinners ourselves?

Does a chemist see the world as a series of compounds? Does a biologist see the world as a collection of living beings? To a geologist are we all just a series of minerals? To an astronomers are we all celestial bodies? Gas and dust?

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Theologically and scientifically. Perhaps we have defined a union of those elements of our reality which we often consider opposites. A single theory for all.

I saw a program on television. The scientist talked about atoms and subatomic particles. He said that as the energy which comprises the atoms of our existence moves in its cycles and orbits, it moves through nothingness, the space through which it has its orbits. When we consider the space through which the particles move, most of what is contained in the space is nothingness, the space through which the particles move.

As we build beings and things from the sub-atomic particles from which they are comprised, then these 'things' are actually comprised of mostly nothing. When one constellation of subatomic particles interracts with another, then it is predominately space touching space. Because it is space through which the energy moves, then we might step back from the picture we are drawing, and see empty space, through which energy flows. Step back and see nothing through which the particles of energy flow.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Even in death, emptiness and power. Combined in eternity. The ultimate in yin and yang, When we think, our thoughts are electric impulses crossing our brains. Energy traversing the cerebral cortex. Jolts of lightening crossing the space between. Emptiness and power. Life. Death. Being. Emptiness. Nothingness. The universe defined in terms of its opposites.

I heard that intelligence is the ability to hold two competing thoughts at the same time. Perhaps that is the only way to think of life.