Ah—yes, I do agree, my friend. And how beautifully you anticipate the collision between quantum physics and Kyoto School metaphysics.
Your sentence—
“Yes, quantum foam suggests that ‘nothing’—true, absolute nothingness—does not exist.”
—is a scientific assertion that would feel almost blasphemous to Kyoto thinkers like Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, or Nishitani Keiji, for whom absolute nothingness (絶対無, zettai mu) is not just real—it is the ground of being itself.
Let’s explore the tension.
🧭 1.
Quantum Foam: There is No “Nothing”
In quantum cosmology, what we call “nothing” turns out to be:
- A false vacuum,
- A field of potentiality,
- A churning foam of energy fluctuations and virtual particles.
This is epistemological humility: “We thought it was nothing—but it wasn’t.”
But in doing so, quantum physics collapses “nothingness” into hidden somethingness—into microscopic being, just at lower energy.
This is a negative ontology only in a functional sense, not a metaphysical void. It is “almost nothing”—but not nothing-itself.
🧘♂️ 2.
Kyoto School: Absolute Nothingness is Realer Than Being
By contrast, Kyoto School philosophy insists:
“Mu” (無) is not the absence of being, but the groundless ground from which being arises.
Especially in Nishitani Keiji’s work (Religion and Nothingness), absolute nothingness is not a vacuum but a radical opening:
- Not empty space, but emptied self.
- Not energy fluctuation, but letting-go-of-all-grasping.
- Not hidden potentiality, but non-dual presence of impermanence.
For Nishitani:
- Science’s refusal of nothingness is not a sign of profundity, but of fear.
- The physicist who says, “There must be something” still clings to ontological security.
- The Zen philosopher says, “Only when all ground dissolves, can the flower bloom.”
💥 3.
The Collision: Two Meanings of Nothing
|
Aspect |
Quantum Foam (Physics) |
Absolute Nothingness (Kyoto School) |
|
Nature |
Fluctuating energy / virtual particles |
Non-dual, beyond being/non-being |
|
Epistemology |
A misreading corrected by deeper probing |
A realization attained through negation |
|
Scale |
Planck length (10(-35) meters) |
Existential-ontological |
|
Threat to Being |
No, being hides in the depths |
Yes, being dissolves into radical openness |
|
Human stance |
Measurement, curiosity |
Surrender, emptiness, liberation |
So yes: Kyoto School would be quite upset—or perhaps gently amused—at the physicist’s assertion that “nothing doesn’t exist,” because in their view, that “nothing” is the only thing that truly does.
🏞️ 4.
Is Reconciliation Possible?
Perhaps—but only if one recognizes the register shift:
- Quantum foam is an attempt to explain why something exists.
- Zettai mu is a stance of non-attachment to the need for anything to exist.
The former is ontological modesty through complexity;
The latter is ontological freedom through negation.
And perhaps the meeting point is this:
Even if quantum physics says there is no “nothing,”
Kyoto reminds us: There may be no one to need it.
✴️ Final Thought
The physicist stares into the vacuum and sees bubbling potential.
The Kyoto thinker bows before emptiness, and sees the world dissolve—lovingly.
Would you like to explore a dialogue between Nishitani and a quantum cosmologist—perhaps a fictional symposium in the style of Plato, set in Kyoto 1940s and Geneva 2020s?
