The Book of Non-Existence, Vadim Filatov [top 100 books of all time checklist .txt] 📗

it is inevitable eventually comes back. And whether there is this everything or it too, at least, potentially, does not exist? Thus life is considered by him as a casual anomaly of all the same Non-existence. Confirming this position Chanyshev has formulated following theses:
1) The Non-existence is more absolute than life in the same measure in what the substance is more absolute than it’s conditions;
2) Casual is absolute, and every law is relative, because any law cannot provide all cases. Generally speaking, for a case there is no law. The law is only for cases;
3) The Non-existence in which all contrasts are destroyed is more absolute than these contrasts. We can recollect at least zero density in the Universe, for example;
4) Everything present is only a small part of that is absent and of that which will be, i.e. of the Non-existence;
5) The moving body is in one, final part of space, and it is not in another, infinite part of space; any body exists in a final part of space and does not exist in its infinite part;
6) All arises for a while, and perishes forever. Occurrence and destruction possess various strength. So far as time is not a phenomenon, but an essential property of life, so far as everything is short-lived, the Non-Existence is absolute, and life is quite relative. (And, hence, the doomsday is inevitable).
Thus, Chanyshev considers that the underlying all Non-Existence (the Void) illusory acts as the world with its seeming variety. A Non-Existence initially represents a world normal state, while life - only a time deviation, the form of existence of a non-existence. A non-existence of the Non-Existence is life. As the Non-Existence exists, without existing, and does not exist, existing, it compounds a time. Only the Non-Existence can be both an original cause and self-reason: as it does not exist, then it does not demand the reasons for the existence. The Increasing speeds, more and more high rates of a life, more and more distant flights in space, - unless it not an aspiration of life at least for an instant to come off the Non-Existence?
“All of us go on thin ice over ocean of the Non-Existence. The more life becomes intensively, the more it become fragile, and the more strongly subject to destruction of life there appears “, - Chanyshev speaks. – “A Love is an attempt to be hooked for another's life and to make the life steadier by that “. Also a love for God from here originates: after all just when meeting intolerable physical and sincere sufferings people address to God, trying to be hooked for His eternity.
It would be possible to object on these arguments, for example, as follows: everything is mortal in private displays, and simultaneously it is eternal in its ideal bases. In such a context the "Nothing" can be simultaneously considered as "something". Perhaps, it also is the Void or nirvana which “in the late Buddhism of a Dharma acts as the world in all its variety”?
As a conclusion of his treatise Arseny Chanyshev confirms “a courage of a non-existence” which really means courage of absurdity. This courage represents a self-affirmation of life contrary to inevitability of the Non-Existence. Besides, his ideas generate a natural question: how the primary and substantive Non-existence could produce any life? Statement of this point in a question testifies that, despite of proclaimed by Chanyshev consecutive materialistic approach, his philosophical concept and in general - any courage to be - all of this has obvious or latent idealistic and even mystical bases. According to these bases, a life and accompanying it sufferings are quite illusory, because The Non-Existence is present, and existence is absent.

3). How the Nothing destroys everything.

The Nothing - is a term fixing absence of qualitative definiteness, unlike a “non-existence” which is, as it has already been told, traditionally considered as an absence of a whole life. Sometimes the Nothing is identified with a non-existence as simple negation of life. Besides, the Nothing has additional value, acting as an active beginning of negation, negativity. Figuratively, a concept of the Nothing is used as a hyperbole of belittling of value of some object or some phenomenon.
As everything real is unity of two aspects — life and essence, so far the Nothing serving by negation of aspect of definiteness, simultaneously acts as a negation of life. But the Nothing is not quite equal to the Non-Existence". Analyzing these concepts, we can see different senses of negation. Thus the Nothing is a negation of definiteness, and the Non-Existence is a negation of existence. For this reason in philosophical and religious mysticism a concept of the Nothing is often considered as a kind of existence deprived of definiteness. This got to the Nothing some positive sense, which is unusual for the Non-existence. This means that a material “nothing" simultaneously became a spiritual “everything".
So, Plato, Hegel and others recognized the Nothing as a key category of philosophy (such as “God”, “life”, “absolute” and others), denying a principle according to which “from anything nothing arises” (“ex nihilo nihil fit”).
Within another approach which originates from the Ancient Greek philosophy, the Nothing results from formal negation and is defined as a formal-logic concept. The great Greek thinker Aristotle has been convinced that philosophy begins with a surprise. Probably therefore philosophers can not cease to be surprised with a Life, which is given a person for the sake of the Nothing. Some philosophers consider that "the Void", "the Nothing" and so forth – all these terms are possible only as the concepts existing in consciousness of a person. In materialistic philosophy concept of "the Nothing" is not a philosophical category as if it contradicts with principles of eternity and unity of a material world. From the Christian point of view the eternal Nothing is a display of divine strength and everywhereness. Just from the Nothing have been created by God both angels and the visible Universe. Thereupon a book of bible skeptic Ecclesiastes, in which there is no hint on continuation of a life after death, is interesting. Ecclesiastes does not think out consolations like habitual for us representations about eternity and about a life which does not die even at the moment of death. His quite unusual for the Bible position is summarized by a rhetorical question: “What advantage is received by a worker from results of his work?” (3,9). For the acknowledgement of his views, Ecclesiastes takes a best of all possible scenarios of human destiny: he tells about a tsar, who has possessed both wisdom, and riches, and power. This tsar has succeeded in all his affairs, it has constructed his own world and he has received everything that a person only can wish from a life. But even “a most successful life” cannot avoid its final end, which is death (2, 13-17). And results of works inevitably are gotten into alien hands after death and they can become property of madmen. (2, 18-22). Sometimes this occurs already during ones lifetime, but, in any case, last destiny of a person is darkness and misfortunes (2, 21-23). Finally Ecclesiastes comes to conclusion that even in the most ideal case nothing in life belongs to a person. We will add – with exception for the Nothing itself. A concept of the Nothing is so universal after all, that it becomes possible to explain a nature of God with it. So, according to the Spanish philosopher Miguel Unamuno, “We create God for the aim to rescue the Universe from the Nothing”. But probably is it to relieve the Nothing from itself?
The Nothing is partly connected with a key concept of a Judaic Cabbala – “Ein Sof” which means "Boundless", the Deity, giving rise and extending. Ein Sof is written also as “En Soph” and “Ain Suph”, but anybody, even rabbis, are not sure of a writing of vowels. According to early cabbalists Ein Sof is defined as something “without form and existence", "not having similarity with another” (Frank, “Die Kabbala”). That Ein Sof was never considered as "Creator", it has been said by such an orthodox Jew, as Filon, who named "Creator" as Logos following for "The Boundless", and even as “the Second God". "This second God is a wisdom of Ein Sof”, stated Filon (“Quaest et Solut”). Thus, according to religious metaphysics of Hebrew philosophers, the Principle of Uniformity was an abstraction. However, some modern cabbalists with the help of sophism and paradoxes have rather succeeded in explanation of Ein Sof as the “Supreme God”. The Deity is the Nothing; it is nameless and consequently is named “Ein Sof”, because this “Ein” just means "The Nothing". (Franc “Die Kabbala”).
Considering further evolution of understanding of the Nothing in history of philosophy, we address to Hegel's doctrine. Hegel finds sources of his dialectics of life and the Nothing in previous philosophical doctrines: in its pure form he finds out life in a philosophy of Parmenides, and the Nothing - in the Buddhism. However it is obvious that as a basic theoretical source for him it has served understanding of interrelation of life and the Non-Existence which is present in Plato's doctrine (for example, in his dialogue "Sophist"). Plato managed to relieve an existence as an idea from abstract continuality and, having defined the Non-Existence as something another to existence and simultaneously constantly accompanying an existence, he gave to these basic categories the necessary dynamics for the aim to build his philosophical system as a complex of interrelations. Here it is difficult not to notice an anticipation of the Hegel’s doctrine which overcame static character of all previous systems.
As a starting point of philosophical thinking of Hegel it was his representation about full abstraction and emptiness of the beginning of system which, having defined and becoming more concrete during dialectic process should return to the beginning. An Existence or a Life as an abstract and uncertain spontaneity is identified by Hegel with the Nothing, and both these concepts, passing each other and disappearing in each other, become the moments of formation. The existence and the Nothing disappear in each other so really there is only “a movement of direct disappearance of one in other” (Hegel V.F. “The Science of Logic”). So a terminal point of philosophical system of Hegel is an existence. However it is not an abstract and empty existence, but on the contrary, full and concrete, characterizing the Absolute, which is an existence in its most perfect form.
So, if to follow the idea about primary and substantive character of the Nothing which in this context can be equated to the Absolute, then we will receive that the Nothing (the Non-existence), passing through it’s own comprehension and negation by means of conceiving life, as a result Anything comes back again and definitively to a condition of the Absolute Nothing, or to the Non-Existence in it’s most finished and perfect form. Thus the Absolute Nothing is considered as a substantial something, or, in other words, as the Spiritual Everything. But “spirit reaches the Truth, only finding itself in an absolute rupture”, - as Hegel confirmed. So, this interpretation of the Hegel’s system allows undertake preliminary approach to understanding of objective meaning of materialization of the Nothing in a form of the rupture of continuity, that is, a time transition of the Non-Existence in existence and back. We see that if existence exists in time, the Non-Existence exists out of time, i.e. in eternity, and their dialectic interaction translates the Absolute on qualitatively more perfect step of substantive transformation. Thus the Absolute Nothing can be considered as an objective beginning of everything.
One more, but much less known German philosopher living in 19 century - Phillip Mainlender, considered himself as a follower of pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, has been