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“Can something new arise from nothing?”
Is the question at the intersection of aesthetics and psychoanalysis.
Before delving into the ideas and developing what some artists or philosophers such as Mallarmé or Lacan have written on this question, I think we need to start by defining the concept of “nothing.”
What is nothing? Does it actually exist? It is not always clear on certain occasions. There are multiple perspectives with shared opinions or perceptions, but they also tend to differ in certain other parts.
In science, for example, in chemistry, there is this fundamental law of Lavoisier: nothing can be created from nothing because it would violate the law of conservation of energy. This law presupposes that energy cannot be destroyed or appear out of nowhere, it is constant.
In philosophy, we see that the question of nothingness was already intriguing in prehistoric times. The founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, Parmenides, had his reflections on the subject.
Quick summary: Herakleitos, before Parmenides, was the philosopher who claimed that there is no static being, everything flows, everything changes all the time, and nothing stays the same (panta rhei).
On the other hand, Parmenides believes in “being” and the static nature of the universe. In his fragment, he wrote:
“the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for anything not to be, is the way of. conviction, for truth is its companion.. The other, namely, that It is not, and that something must needs not be, — that, I tell thee, is a wholly untrustworthy path. For you cannot know what is not — that is impossible — nor utter it”
also
Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now it is, all at once, a continuous one. For what kind of origin for it. will you look for ? In what way and from what source could it have drawn its increase ? I shall not let thee say nor think that it came from what is not; for it can neither be thought nor uttered that what is not is. And, if it came from nothing, what need could have made it arise later rather than sooner ? Therefore must it either be…
