Nothingness

Metaphysical note: thoughts about simplicity which are too difficult to express in scientific language

The following passage was written long ago. It is, I believe, true. But its truth is difficult to pin down accurately.
It deals with mathematical issues that I have dim awareness of, and about which I have even proved preliminary theorems: But the contents are still too rarefied, and too incomplete, to be expressed in precise and common sense terms.
Yet the passage may have some value since it allows a poetic perception of an even deeper nature that exists inside simplicity.
This may, for a willing reader, throw light on the ultimate nature of the simple — something not yet fully reached in the preceding scientific text.

Even in physics, the idea of simplicity — whether embodied in Occam’s razor, the principle of least action, minimum principles, Hamiltonian, geodesic light rays, least energy paths, calculus of variations, or rate of entropy production — is surprisingly obscure. Although there is a general rule that nature follows the simplest path, it turns out to be amazingly difficult to give any one completely general formulation of what this means.
[…] Although the have good internal intuitions about simplicity, it is difficult to give a tough-minded general definition which tells us how to identify the “simplest” thing in any given case.
I believe the reason is this:
The idea of simplicity is rooted in the extent to which a given thing comes in contact with the Ground (something I shall not discuss thoroughly until Book 4). For the time being, you may think of the Ground as the substrate of everything, an undivided plenum.
I believe, to put it briefly, that there never can be any purely mechanical formulation of the idea of simplicity. Instead, we shall end by accepting that what is simple is just that which is in contact with the Ground, and the more it is in contact the more simple it is.
However, the simplicity itself, so wonderful and so clear in feeling, still hovers uncertainly over the issue.
In order to understand, with as much clarity as possible, the meeting point between the field of centers, structure-preserving transformations, simplicity and symmetry, I shall now explain a crucial idea about structure-preserving transformations, which I have not described before. It goes to the root.

If we consider so called empty space, it has its own structure, and its own wholeness. I have sketched a version of this particular wholeness on pages 61-63, showing sequences of transformations that start with a row of evenly spaced dots: an approximation to the structure of nothingness.
Within the structure of nothingness there is an endless system of repeating centers, all rather weak, but all equally weak, overlapping continuously. In mathematics this structure is called the continuum. We may also call it simply emptiness. In any case, emptiness or nothingness is not without structure. It has its own wholeness like any other thing.

Now, as I showed on page 61, we can introduce structure-preserving transformations of this nothingness which lead to various new designs and forms. Each of them, too, has its own wholeness. And these in turn can be transformed into other designs and forms, more complex, with their own wholeness. I show this family of forms, all descendants of nothingness, by means of the first line in the accompanying diagram. Each arrow stands for a structure-preserving transformation. Each dot stands for a form which can be reached from nothingness by structure-preserving steps. All of nature is included among the dots which are descendants of nothingness.
There are other designs and forms which can never be obtained from nothingness by structure-preserving transformations. These also form a family. In the second line, each arrow stands for a structure-preserving transformation. Each jagged figure in the second line stands for a form which cannot be reached from nothingness by structure-preserving steps.
The two families are forever separate. You cannot get from one family of the other by structure-preserving steps. To get to the descendants of nothingness from a descendant of jaggedness, you have to destroy structure. To get to a descendant of jaggedness from a descendant of nothingness, you also have to destroy structure.
For instance, the third line of my diagram shows how, once damage has been done and nothingness disturbed in an emerging thing, the ripples and after-effects of that damage will continue for a very long time, and can only be repaired at great cost, and with enormous effort. What foes forward smoothly from nothingness is delicate and precious. But the after-effects of jaggedness, once introduced, are nearly lethal, and very hard, very hard to repair.

All the things with profound life, are in the first family. The works of nature are in the first family. The works of great architecture and great art are in the first family. Everything which is simple, and whole, can be reached from nothingness, and is a transform of nothingness.
On the other hand, the things in the second family, which can only be obtained from nothingness by structure-destroying transformations, or from one another, can only be obtained by tearing structure: and they cannot be alive. This is an extension of the experiments described on pages 61-63. It is as if only those things, forms, conditions, which can be obtained as structure-preserving transformations of nothingness are those which are alive. All others are less alive.

It is highly significant that structure-preserving transformations are connected with the idea of nothingness. A natural thing is a transform of nothingness. A beautiful thing is a transform of nothingness. Anything which has life, which has deep wholeness, also is a transform of nothingness.
What this means is that a thing which has life, no matter how subtle, how complex, how apparently intricate and highly organized is, in effect, a multiplication of elaborations, always preserving inside it, the structure of nothingness. Like water, like the Void, this shows us ultimate simplicity as an inner attribute of everything that has true life.

A remarkable conclusion: Namely, that a thing which is well-made, and beautiful — and a thing which touches the living quality which I am reaching for in these four books, will always be isomorphic to nothingness — it will have the same structure as emptiness.
On the other hand, a thing which is wrongly made — something which has ego-filled, perverse structure in it — will always be partly isomorphic to jaggedness, to something.
This strange conclusion, odd as it sounds, corresponds to certain intuitions. The feeling of things which are very beautiful, which are limpid, clear, smooth — so gracefully simple that, like water, they touch us almost without touching us — is expressed exactly by the strange phrase that they share the structure of nothingness. Each approaches nothing, it is nothing. Its depth comes from its kinship with the great Void. It rests tranquil in its simplicity, because it has, ultimately, no structure and it disappears.

This strange conclusion corresponds, also, to the thoughts which have been expressed by mystics throughout history. In another form, this is the teaching of the Tao, which tells us to be like water. It is the teaching of Hua Yen Buddhism, one of the antecedents of Zen, which tells us to realize that everything is empty. It is the teaching of the Sufis who dance to become one with nothing.

There is no greater vision of what it is that we are doing when we make a thing. We try to reach a structure which, in all its possible complexity, is ultimately so simple that is shares the structure of emptiness and is derived from it.

In the chapters of Book 4, we shall see that beneath the field of centers there is a Ground which is personal, potentially full of feeling, perhaps animate or being-like. The Ground appears not like a material substance, but more like self-stuff or self-substance.
Here, in anticipation, we see something almost equally mysterious. That Ground, in some fashion, is nothing-like. It is the original emptiness. A thing which is truly whole, respects that nothingness. The nothingness is still visible in it. Only a wrongly made thing which is too complicated, too filled with ego, disturbs this nothingness, and lets itself be seen and felt.
True simplicity — the thing which is true whole — leaves the nothing undisturbed, quiet, like a lake.

If we imagine a mountain stream crashing and tumbling and then reaching a still pool, we may see the water in that pool as dark, and slightly turbulent. As the surface of the pool becomes quieter and quieter, we see further and further into the darkness of the water.
In the same way, as the steps which make a building let is become simpler and simpler, we see further and further into the Void.
Our connection with the Ground becomes more tangible. Our glimpse of the Self which is the Ground becomes more definite.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/17 Simplicity#