Nothing comes from nothing

By Klaus Döring

“Nothing comes from nothing” is a famous idea. It means you need a cause to get a result. You must do work to see rewards. However, this idea has two very different meanings. Let us look at them below.

“Nothing comes from nothing,” a Latin phrase called ex nihilo nihil fit, is a core idea in philosophy. It means something cannot be made out of complete nothingness. Everything that exists must have a cause, a reason, or existing matter to start from. The phrase you mention is a variation on ex nihilo nihil fit, or “from nothing, nothing comes,” attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides.

For me, the answer lies in the oddly philosophical line in one of the songs composed by Richard Rodgers, with music, and Oscar Hammerstein II, with lyrics, in the 1965 film musical “The Sound of Music”: “Nothing comes from nothing.”

“Something Good,” sung by Maria and the Captain in “The Sound of Music”

The lyrics go: “Nothing comes from nothing — nothing ever could.”

Our globe and its population bear innumerable strange facts. In many people’s opinion, this world mostly shows worrying characteristics and symptoms nowadays. No wonder. Just try to consume and digest today’s headlines and news from around the globe.

The idea of “nothing comes from everything” is a philosophical concept and a common question explored in various fields. It suggests that existence can emerge from a state of absence or nonbeing. While it might sound paradoxical, this concept has been a topic of debate in philosophy, theology, and even physics. Some perspectives posit that the universe could have arisen from a previous state of nothingness, while others suggest that something always existed, even if it wasn’t in a recognizable form.

The notion of “nothing comes from everything” challenges the fundamental assumption that something cannot come from nothing. It prompts questions about the nature of existence, the potential for creation from nonexistence, and the relationship between being and nonbeing.

Some religious traditions, like Christianity, have a concept of creation from nothing, or ex nihilo, in which a deity created the universe from an empty void. This idea, while seemingly counterintuitive, has been a cornerstone of theological belief.

In physics and cosmology, the concept of “something coming from nothing” is explored in the context of the Big Bang theory and the nature of the quantum vacuum. Some cosmologists propose that the universe could have emerged spontaneously from a state of nothingness, a concept referred to as “quantum fluctuation” or “creation from nothing.”

Re-evaluation of existence: The idea encourages a re-evaluation of what we understand as “nothing,” considering that it might be a state of potential rather than total absence.
Emergence of order: It suggests that complexity and order could arise from an initially simple or chaotic state.
Challenging causality: The notion of something arising from nothing challenges the traditional view of cause and effect, in which an effect must always have a cause.

It is a world with quickly bridged distances — our Mother Earth is becoming smaller and smaller. Any tourist, even with little time and only a small budget, can travel to other faraway cultures. But joining them, as well as different races and religious communities, requires, first of all, great care, tact, instinctive feeling, empathy, and logical ideas.

The stranger whom we meet for the first time during a business meeting, for example, may be an uncommon, odd, and extraordinary guy. He may be someone from a foreign country who speaks another language and whose skin is a different color. He may be a migrant, a restless hiker, or an expatriate in our neighborhood.

The foreigner beside you and me can become a provocation or a challenge. Strangeness can become exoticism. Maybe that’s why my family and I decided to move to the Philippines in 1999. On the other hand — going abroad can open new and even better horizons. We must not feel like “a stranger in paradise.” By the way, I never did, since I have toured around the globe many times. On the other hand, I am not putting my country of birth into the trash. Heaven forbid, no!

However, a migrant carries a juxtaposition of optimism, even calculated optimism, confused feelings, nostalgia, and homesickness. Yes, guys, during the first years of my expat life in the Philippines, the round-trip ticket was always in my mind because no one among us can escape his native roots.

But I am really a lucky guy. I experienced amazing tolerance in the Philippines. Real, practicing

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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com, or follow me on Facebook, X-Twitter, or LinkedIn, or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com.