A different kind of zero

The film, The Zero Theorem (2013) which was directed by Terry Gilliam is for me a Buddhist film.  The main character Qohen is asked by management to solve the "Zero Theorem" which management hopes will prove that life is essentially meaningless in light of the Big Crunch theory which posits the idea that the universe is like an expanding soufflé that eventually will collapse on itself.  Hence, the Big Crunch.  This is a play off of 1+-1 =0 which suggests that everything adds  up to nothing.  Even Steven Hawking seems to agree.

“This may sound odd, but according to the laws of nature concerning gravity and motion, laws that are among the oldest in science, space itself is a vast store of negative energy – enough to ensure that everything adds up to zero. I’ll admit that unless mathematics is your thing, this is hard to grasp, but it’s true.”

The problem with this theory seems to be zero or in Buddhism shunya.  Assuming the Big Crunch happens, our soufflé-like universe returns to the very substance from which it was composed—a kind of super nirvana.  So far so good. But it is more likely that our universe is not going to crunch.   

If we assume a wave-based universe, a wave being an alternating quantity of x plotted against time, zero or rather zero-phase  simply reveals x or the substance x which has been alternating.  Our zero is not sheer nothing, in other words.  The zero is really what composes the wave like the element water showing itself as waves.  The waves arise this being 1; then the waves subside, this being -1.  At zero or no waves, there is only the unwaved water itself.    

Based on the Lankavatara Sutra let’s regard x as absolute Mind, akin to Kingdon Clifford’s mind stuff (Clifford coined this term in 1878).  Because of this, our endeavors are not meaningless.  As long as we whole heartedly seek the substance of the universe, everything relative to our search has meaning for us.  All alternating wave phenomena are just an expression of Mind—we just don’t recognize it since we are mesmerized by phenomena.

From a Buddhist perspective what is most primordial in us is the substance or essence of the universe which is neither 1 nor -1.  While our monkey mind or our thoughts might be considered to be like 1+-1, still, at the same time, this alternation serves to disclose the immediacy of our true, primordial nature if we begin to attend to it, first out of faith.  What we are going against is ignorance of our primordiality which is locked on the wave:  the 1 and then the -1 back, again, to the 1 ad infinitum.  We never get in phase-lock with 0 (this would be satori).  Instead, we remain bound down to samsara. The meaninglessness of life is being caught up in eternal alternation without knowing what is alternating which is naturally liberated. 

Comments

[Adasatala]

Haha, my thoughts exactly. By the end of it, it reminded me of "enjoying a merry samadhi." Very nice film!

The writer was inspired by the Bible:

'It was originally inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. “Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, all is empty.” The speaker of that, Koheleth — which is where I got the name Cohen [The Zero Theorem’s main character] — is basically bemoaning the fact that if there is no afterlife, what does it profit a man to live a good life, or any kind of life? It’s the first Old Testament complaint, I believe — some kind of life after death.'

[n. yeti]

Man, you're even crazier than I am. Keep it up!

[Om nom nom]

p.s.

The Captcha thing is a good case in point. We can see the numbers that a computer cannot. We can see them because we can see "that looks like....." and we guess correctly. We are so good at it that we don't recognise the fact that we've taken fuzzy low-contrast blobs and found numbers not interestingly shaped ant colonies. We never thought the ant colony thing was an option.....

[minx]

Nice article which I fully agree with.

Saw this film last month. Very nice one, but then I´ve enjoyed most of former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam´s flicks.

The main character Qohen Leth in the movie (played masterfully by Christoph Waltz) always refers to himself as "we" whenever he talks with another person. This, in a way, highlights his dialectical mind that tries to hack the zero theorem like some mathematical koan given to him by his boss the "management" played by Matt Dillion.

Anyway, not to reveal the whole plot its a movie worth seeing with some nice twists.

[Om nom nom]

Sigh!

What is the difference between 'something' and 'nothing'? When 'something' is exceedingly small then when you look you can see either. So the universe is seen as a field of static. The total value of the static is zero (but may not be, may in fact be slightly positive) but each little bit may be zero or +/- tiny-bit.

Unrelated to this. The brain has two styles of thinking that we recognize (there are more).

One style is obvious - thoughts. Thoughts are concepts that are clearly defined into things which are is/is-not. This iS an Elephant, This IS NOT an Elephant, This is LIKE an Elephant. It does not cope well with "This is an Elephant on Tuesdays and Mondays and if you look at it kinda funny". It is basically a digital world.

The other style that we recognize doesn't fit into thoughts. It is fundamentally an analog world. So in this world there is a very tall spike in a wave that represents how Elephanty something might be. If this spike is very tall then the thing is extremely Elephanty - enough so that we might call it an Elephant. If the spike is very small then something might be only slightly Elephanty - say a mouse going on holiday (4 legs a long nose and a trunk). But in this world everything is Elephanty to a greater or lesser extent.

At the same time everything is Treeish to a greater or lesser extent and so on.

So one part of the brain is dealing with concrete things. Another part is working in a very fluid way without concepts. They both are part of consciousness and it is the case that a very large Elephanty spike would also appear in consciousness as the concept 'Elephant'.

Intuition manifests out of this analog world. If something that is very Elephanty is charging towards you it's best to get out of the way. You don't need to be 100% certain that it's an Elephant to realise that an Elephanty thing hitting you is going to hurt. It can be a very fast mode of thinking.

Now add in Pattern Recognition - another important unsung brain mode. If I see a herd of Elephanty things it might be there or it might be a football team kicking up dust. Which am I seeing correctly? When I look at a tree quickly I might see a tiny blob of colour and shapes. Pattern Recognition will take this, have a guess and say "Squirrel". When I look again it might see "Leaves, branches and some sunlight arranged in a Squirrellish shape".

Now imagine that you could see the Squirrel but be unable to see that it might also be "Leaves,branches etc in a Squirrelish shape". Imagine that in general you never get to look twice so you never know which one is most true - an actual squirrel or something that looked like a squirrel. But still you have to act (or not).

I seem to deliberately choose to manifest who is Zen-Teachery but is not a Zen-Teacher. But am I lying? Am I really a monk with a cellphone at Antai-ji?

Physics and Zen are like Granite and Mice. They are not related.