real is Nothing
nothing is real
what’s real is what’s Not
Capitalized words include “Nothing” and “Not.” This site is based upon the idea of an “infinite zero.” ‘kay, enough of that for now — let’s move on.
What is this Dao that you hear about? 何謂道？ (For my spiel on my preference for “Dao” instead of “Taoism,” see the FAQs.) 老子 (Lao zi, also “Lao tze” or “Lao tse”) opens the 清靜經 (Qing jing jing) with:
大道無形，生育天地；
大道無情，運行日月；
大道無名，長養萬物。
吾不知其名，強名曰道。
The great Dao has no shape, yet gives birth and nourishes heaven and earth.
The great Dao has no emotion, yet moves all heavenly objects.
The great Dao has no name, yet cultivates all things.
I know not its name; I am forced to call it “Dao.”
and 道德經 (Dao de jing, Tao te ching) with the following:
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。
The Dao that can be put into language is not the enduring and unchanging Dao.
The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.
Dao is in everything. It is the universal Truth. A waterbottle works because it has its own Dao. A knife and fork can coordinate together on your plate because of the Dao they share. You need to use the bathroom every few hours because of an intrinsic reason behind the way your body works, Dao. Some of us are attracted to movies and TV shows because of a Dao behind it all.
Modern science is a subset of Dao, because it deals only in the physical realm, and all things physical are plagued by their ephemeral nature. Take our waterbottle, for instance. You might say that one particular waterbottle has a cylindrical shape with a narrow opening on one end, with a cover of some type for that opening. But everything physical has a beginning and an end. A waterbottle is born when it is made; its essence is lost when it is destroyed, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Maybe its lid falls into a gorge. Maybe it becomes cracked and can no longer hold any water. Maybe gets lost somewhere and becomes devoured by acid rain over the years.
Nothing physical is everlasting, and thus science, the study of the physical realm, can never pry open Dao, the universal and everlasting Truth. Science measures change. Everything is relative in science. It is absolutely impossible to use science to detect something omnipresent, everlasting, and absolute. (Though I do think, however, that we can use what we’ve learned from science to gain insight to how the Universe works beyond its physical aspects. I know I’ve had a lot of fun doing so.)
To illustrate, let’s return to our waterbottle example. After the waterbottle dies, I contend that there is still an essence of it that lives on. It’s impossible detect this essence with scientific methods. It is an essence that existed long before the waterbottle was made, that stays with the waterbottle throughout its lifetime, and that lingers after the waterbottle dies. This essence is what I call Dao. Sure, you could argue that this essence doesn’t exist, because we can’t detect it tangibly. Ah, but it clearly does, since can see the shape and form of a waterbottle during its lifetime! You’ll need to think beyond logic for this one. 
Point: Nothing physical is everlasting. The essences of physical objects are mere subsets of the essence of Dao.
Philosophy, too, is only a small corner of Dao, because no philosophy can exist without some manipulation of language to convey the ideas behind it. Not only is language severely limiting in the scope of ideas it can express, it too is plagued by its ephemeral nature; nothing put into language is true for eternity. Hence, “The Dao that can be put into language is not the enduring and unchanging Dao” (above). This means that the study of Dao, which is a philosophy in itself, can only talk around the true Dao, because no language can be used to actually describe it. Beyond description is a Dao that can’t be put into words. It’s just an essence, something that makes things the way they are, that makes things tick. This Dao is the everlasting Truth. It is the Dao that stays true with the waterbottle even when it becomes destroyed. Complete understanding of this Dao depends completely on the individual and can only be achieved by searching within the Self.
Think about this: While Daoism is only a philosophy, philosophy is but a small subset of Dao.
Point: Language is limiting and conveys ideas that are only ephemerally true.
Dao is everywhere, in you, in me; it’s not alone, seperate from everything else. Dao is not a seperate school of thought — it’s in every school of thought. I invite you to contemplate on this as I have. It’s fun, trust me. Make yourself one with the the universe — and thus with Dao — and you can truly come to understand it.
Updated 17 Oct 2007.
You’re using physical evidence (we can “see” the water bottle) as evidence for proving something “superphysical,” and yet we can’t use physical evidence to DISPROVE something superphysical. What happened to “everything ephemeral can tell us nothing about universal truth”? Clearly, according to you, it can. Also, your whole spiel doesn’t address how we can have any way of knowing that this “Dao” exists; it sounds just as silly as an invisible pink unicorn. Actually, I think I will call “Dao” the invisible pink unicorn now.
Also, one of your premises of the invisible pink unicorn is that language can’t describe it, implying you know something about its properties. How is this possible? It’s also particularly annoying that you consider pink unicornism universal and encompassing of all ideas, immediately cancelling any intelligent debate on it since you already consider it complete and utter truth, despite not knowing what it informs you to do.
All this is merely one way of describing things. And it’s only my own theory, so you shouldn’t be bashing the entire concept of the pink unicorn.
But let me put it this way:
What are we made of? Cells.
What are cells made of? Molecules.
What are molecules made of? Atoms.
What are atoms made of? Subatomic particles.
What are subatomic particles made of? Quarks.
What are quarks made of? We don’t know yet.
If you keep going back for, say, an infinite number of times, you’ll eventually arrive at a stage where you say, “What are Xs made up of?” And your answer would be, “Nothing, it just is what it is.” This is the pink unicorn I’m describing.
The pink unicorn isn’t something you prove or disprove, you’re looking at it all wrong. It just IS.
I don’t think I proved anything in the post. And I never said that ephemeral things can’t tell us anything about a truth. They can’t prove anything to us, but they can have clues to a truth – that’s what I was trying to get at.
Right, clues. Things that help us prove things. True, we can’t really prove anything– but that philosophical conversation is moot in the event that we actually want to decide something about how things work or what to do with our lives. So yes, “clues” are ways towards proof, seeing that proof is hardly an arrival point, but rather a continuum.
Also, you’re not really talking about the smallest “X” particle when you talk about the invisible pink unicorn; you talk about it as if it “rules the entire universe.” Let’s assume atoms WERE the smallest part of the universe. Would they “reign supreme” over everything? No. Physical laws are what make things move; they dictate paths of energy. Atoms aren’t agents at all; they are products or pawns in a complex physical system.
Also, when you say something just “is”, that is an empirical observation. It either “is” or “is not”; therefore, it warrants proof for this fact. It’s the same thing when I argue with Christians and I say “you need proof that your god exists” and they say “god is outside the bounds of logic.” I say, “no, he’s not, because your complex conception of god is riddled with empirical facts about the universe that are either true or false; anything with a true or false value is subject to debate and hence falls in the domain of rationality.” The invisible pink unicorn is no exception.
Pi is 3.14 – is there any reason? No. It just is. You’re making Dao out to be far more than it really is.
Here’s what I think is funky. When you actually think you’re talking about (i.e. attacking) Dao, you’re not, because you make it something it’s not. But when you assert your own views, I’d say you’re right on the mark with Dao, whether you know it or not.
What I want to know is why the “essence” of the water bottle lives on when the water bottle itself clearly does not. This part of Dao is what confuses me most, since it seems to have some superphysical aspects that can’t really be tested.
The “essence” lives on, so to speak, because the laws that govern the waterbottle “live” on, even without the waterbottle actually being there.
Ah. Well I would consider that different from an “essence” but I guess that point is really just semantics. That makes perfect sense; the physical laws we observe are eternal and everlasting.
the water bottle lives on (even after it is destroyed) because it is, at its simplest form, tao. if the water bottle did not exist, neither would tao, and neither would we. the water bottle, in any physical incarnation, is tao.
Greetings, Mr. Arctic! And happy new year.
I think you make a keen observation:
This is a great way to look at it. I’ve actually never thought of it this way before! Before you destroy something, it’s Dao. After you destroy something, it’s still Dao. And so it lives on, in a way. That’s a great new perspective to look at things — thanks for sharing!
Here’s where I start to lose you, though:
I don’t think this kind of reverse logic works. For example, fruits are made of cells, which are made of molecules, which are made of atoms. Imagine yourself at the “beginning of the universe” (assuming there ever was one – which I don’t think there ever was), prior to the creation of any fruit. Would it be correct to say that because fruits didn’t exist, neither do atoms?
Hmm… also, what exactly do you mean by “any physical incarnation” of the water bottle?
Cheers, and welcome to i0!
hmm… i think you might be over-thinking what i said. all i meant was that, if we are all made of the same unified substance at our simplest, then if the “water bottle” ever DIDN’T exist, then neither would we because the base quality that we share would cease to exist. if that is ever a possibility, then the tao would constantly be diminishing, which is not true.
along with that, what i meant about “any physical incarnation” of the water bottle is that it doesnt matter what state the water bottle is in (or, for that matter, any physical entity of the universe), because it is still composed of the tao.
Ah, I see. Okay – thanks for the clarification!