[extropy-chat] Nothing and the bare necessities

[Damien Broderick]

At 08:47 AM 3/7/2005 +0100, Serafino wrote:

>Btw, I strongly believe that John Duns Scotus was a
>proto cosmologist, knowing everything about the quantum
>fluctuations of the primordial vacuum/nihil, containing
>everything else, at least potentially. As J.L. Borges
>pointed out many times, it rests to be seen whether
>that nihil/nothing is much better than something :-)
>
>"The reason that there is Something
>rather than Nothing
>is that Nothing is unstable."
>- Frank Wilczek

Shakespeare had a keen insight into the Higgs field, and the way to 
distinguish it from exchange particles:

<http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/cressida/3?term=light>Troilus 
and Cressida - Act 1, Scene III

Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

Damien Broderick