>>> David Martorana on "nothing" 
 WE> What's a nihil?
 DM> "nothing"
 DM> It is not an easily defined word as even Webster
 DM> gets lost in the "nihil - ism",  associating the
 DM> term with a diverse of negative implications.
Face it, the very word 'no-thing' is negative.
 DM> In addition to the basic definition I see it extended
 DM> into the emptiness of man not in the center of meaning
 DM> ...not knowing .....never to know. .......a challenge,
 DM> perhaps essential to some limited forms of optimism.
Emptiness is an interesting synonym, tho again with much negation, it does 
have positive dimension.  Have you read the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu?  He has 
much to say about emptiness:  'Shape clay into a vessel;  It is the space 
within that makes it useful.'
 DM> The quiet place-state of "Nirvava" is a POSITIVE epic
 DM> quiet of attainment. A null set (math) is an artificial
 DM> construct to serve a purpose. I don't believe the
 DM> "NIHIL" can be identified with either of them. It is
 DM> more a wall, or side, of what we cannot seem to know
 DM> of our reality. 
Nihilism is a philosophic notion of a limit to knowledge.  'Cannot', again 
another negative implication.  You'd like Godel Incompleteness Theorem from 
mathematical logic.  He proved that there existed statements such that 
neither the statement itself nor its negation could ever be proved.  That 
there are statements that can neither be proven nor disproved.  How's that 
for enforced ignorance. -)  Tho nihilism asserts that human knowledge is 
incomplete, mathematicians have proven that it is.  
Recent focus has been on problems which, tho theoretically solvable, cannot 
actually be done even with supercomputers.  They haven't actually proved the 
existence of such, but it has been proven that the whole bunch of such 
problems are equivalent in the sense that if one is actually solvable, they 
all are.
 DM> The above may not fit clearly into
 DM> proper definition but it indicates some how I see it.
No, it's not definitive nor even allegorical, merely allusive.
 DM> Though not quick on the tongue, it might even be a
 DM> term more comfortable near to dark poetry ....where
 DM> knowing can skirt reason .....with a bit of patience
 DM> and licence.
Yes, it's easy to recognize that we don't know everything.  It's a fantasy 
that we -can- know everything.  Science has this fantasy and philosophy even 
more so.  Religion has the most pronounced fantasy of omniscience ever, that 
my buddy god knows it all.  'Tis the minority of thinkers that recognize that 
human cognizance is limited.  This is why Godel's Incompleteness Theorem was 
such a shock.  
An earlier shock was Russell's Paradox.  It was a lot harder to resolve than 
Xeno's paradox.  You know of these?  Interesting study they be on limitations 
of logic.
... Mirvana, our place in space.
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