Thinking What Can’t Be Thought. (another tangent)

[Pavlos Maros]

I enjoy your thought tangents. Did you study philosophy in school? You seem like a very learned person @Pavlos Maros.

It is hard to wrap my head around “nothing”, “forever” and even “time” - I’ve been thinking about those three things and how they fit together and what they mean for our lived experience since I was about 15 and I guess I’ve come up with an image/ feeling about them but I can’t fully fathom them - just that without time nothing would exist - time couldn’t exist because it’s something - and yet if nothing could go on forever it would need to be time dependent, because forever is an infinite amount of time. It’s paradoxical. The possible scientific theories don’t satisfy my desire to understand what they mean for our experience of them. I can’t even articulate what I’m trying to say, very well. I’ll come back to it. Thanks for another interesting thread.

Thanks you, I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I haven’t studied philosophy formally, and to be honest, I’ve never really rated it that highly as a discipline, at least not in the academic sense. I posted this tangent last Friday Philosophy. A good start that is never concluded. It would give you a great understanding of my position on philosophy. And no not so much a learned person, more a person who reads, listen, and cogitates.
That said, I do think about these big concepts, probably in the same way you do, not because they’re “philosophical,” but because they’re unavoidable if you’re curious and paying attention. Things like “nothing,” “forever,” or “time” are paradoxical by nature, and trying to think about them almost breaks the tools we have for thinking.
I really relate to what you said about not being able to fully articulate your thoughts, that feeling of almost grasping something, but not quite. It’s like the mind bumps up against its own limits. And you're right, even scientific explanations, for all their clarity, often leave that deeper desire for meaning or true understanding, unsatisfied.
I guess what I’m saying is, I haven’t followed a philosophical path, but I’ve still ended up in some of the same mental territory. Maybe that’s just part of being human. I'm glad you found the thread interesting, it's been great hearing how others are wrestling with the same kinds of questions.