What is Nothingness: Between the Beginning and End of the Universe - Creative Awards 2025 (Essay Category) Entry - (Posted 5/29)

Introduction: About this essay

The writing style follows the world of BLUE “Tsurezure BLUE naru mama ni” (In the Mood for BLUE)

• Starting with nature and daily life

• Where thoughts intersect with the extraordinary

• A blend of philosophy, emotion, and science

• Drifting between humor and serenity

I hope to write with this flow in mind 🤗

Now, let us begin—

“What is Nothingness: Between the Beginning and End of the Universe”

Subtitle: “At the Tip of the Knife That Fillets Memories: The Chef Series”

Prologue: Swimming Questions, Lively Dumbbells

A water tank sways across the counter. Inside, a lively fish swims as if it has just discovered strength training.
Looking closely, it carries a small silver “dumbbell” on its pectoral fin.
—Wait? Strength training? In a water tank?

Rubbing my eyes, I think, “Huh?” —Is this reality? Or am I in a dream?

The supple movement of the fish and the meaningless weight of the dumbbell, that strange imbalance, drops a question deep into my chest.

The question begins to swim quietly.
Even after waking, the answer remains beyond the dream.

Yes, this is a story that touches upon “nothingness”.

Why is there something in a place where there should be nothing?
Why is existence so certain, yet at the same time so fleeting?

As I was thinking about such things, the sushi chef at the counter behind me muttered something.

Wait? This line, somewhere—
I feel like I should be able to remember it, but I can't.
Yet, I certainly felt a connection to that dumbbell fish.

This story is not about the time before the Big Bang, nor is it about the end of the future.
It is a story that flows in the “interstice” of those, a story of the space between existence and non-existence. It might be an act of ‘maintaining boundaries while believing in resonance’ when confronting a black hole.🤔

‘The Ultimate Black🐦‍⬛’ - Creative Award 2025 (Essay Category) Entry - (5/24 Added note: ‘On St. Elmo's Fire’)

What is “nothingness”?
That question had begun to slowly warm my heart.

🌀Chapter 1: Fluctuation was the beginning of everything

—It is often said that before the Big Bang, there was “nothing.”

　However, that space considered to be “nothing” was, in fact, filled with an invisible frenzy. Infinite possibilities were crowded there, masquerading as “silence.”
　To borrow the language of physics, it was “quantum fluctuation.” It is said that a slightly swaying, invisibly minute “wave of probability” gave birth to everything in this universe.

I want you to imagine it.
Complete silence. A place without light, sound, or even time.
Suddenly, “something” happens there—
A fluctuation, that is, a “slight difference” that drifts between zero and non-zero.

That small “fluctuation” pressed the switch for expansion.
The Big Bang.
Light, time, gravity—this world was born explosively.

But, BLUE suddenly asks back.

A “quantum vacuum,” despite having the name vacuum,
is actually not nothing, but a mass of potential filled with energy.
It is an invisibly busy
“sea of fluctuations” where virtual particles are born and vanish in an instant, only to be born and vanish again.

—If that is the case, the story changes a little.
Before the Big Bang, it was not “absolute nothingness.”
There was already “something” there.
If so, can we call it “nothing”?

BLUE thinks about it this way.

“Nothingness” is a complete “absence” where there is no fluctuation, no time, and no space.
In that sense, the “world before the Big Bang” that physics speaks of is merely a quiet but active pre-stage, far from being called “nothing.”

Science says, "Quantum fluctuations created the universe."
But BLUE keeps asking.

Questions bring more questions.
Like bubbles rising from the bottom of a fish tank.
When I think that each bubble might be the seed of a tiny universe,
surely those bubbles must have been reflected in the depths of the fish's eyes as well.

The stillness in the water and the origin of the universe are somewhat similar.

The act of swimming is also about surrendering oneself to the fluctuations.
If this world was born from such "fluctuations,"
then perhaps it is the natural order for us, too, to sway, wander, and live.

By moving forward through the fluctuations in that way,
a day might come when we suddenly touch "nothingness."

Until then, you just have to swim.
Let go of those dumbbells.

🐟Chapter 2: "At the Tip of the Knife That Cuts Through Memories - Chef Series"

A world where fish holding dumbbells swim in the aforementioned tank
-- A story that unfolds in a parallel world separate from this one

For those interested,click here👇Please enjoy☺️
"At the Tip of the Knife That Cuts Through Memories-Chef Series"-Creative Awards2025(Essay Category) Entry-(Posted5/27)"

🧭Chapter 3: "Nothingness" as Discussed by Physics, Mathematics, and Religion

There is no word whose meaning is as diffused as "nothingness."

Nothingness for a physicist is actually quite hot 🥵
Even in a vacuum, virtual particles are constantly being born and vanishing.
"Empty space" was, in reality, a "field bubbling with energy."

There is a theory that when the surface tension of those bubbles collapses,
the universe is born as if it were popping—like a burst.

In other words, nothingness is not zero.Nothingness is a fully equipped zero.
It looks like nothing is there, but it is actually like an invisible warehouse packed with every possibility.

On the other hand,mathematical nothingness is extremely cool 🥶
The concept of "0" is the pinnacle of abstraction that humanity invented after much struggle.
It was born in India, passed through Arabia, and reached Europe.
However, it is not just a symbol for "nothing."
0️⃣ became the starting point that supports all other numbers and the world.

And, as if to form a pair with infinity ♾️, 0️⃣ is positioned at the core of the mathematical universe.
There,non-existence becomes the foundation for existence.

And,nothingness in religion and philosophy is even more delicate.
It is silence, void, liberation, or perhaps the "stillness" that lies beyond enlightenment.

In Buddhism, there is the concept of "Sunyata" (Emptiness).
It is not merely "nothing," but rather indicates thatall existence is interdependent and lacks an inherent essence.
In other words, a world that sways between "being" and "not being."
Each individual existence can only exist in relation to others—
it is like a philosophical version of quantum entanglement.

In Christian theology, it is said that "God created the world out of nothing."
Nothingness here is the "pre-existence state" before creation.
There was no one, no time, no space, only the will of God.
Like a CPU before the code runs, a silent sea of possibility.

BLUE thinks.

The philosopher Heidegger posed the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
But perhaps "nothingness" and "existence" cannot be separated in the first place.
They support each other, cancel each other out, and melt smoothly into one another, weaving the world.

This is,BLUE's value of 'the power of harmony with the heterogeneous'—two-in-one ☯️

For example, a fish tank at a sushi restaurant.
If the space where the fish swim is "existence",
and the momentary blank space where there are no fish is "nothingness"—
it is in that "interval" that rhythm is born.

And rhythm is what gives birth to life, moves stories, and makes the universe tremble.

The "nothingness" that BLUE thinks of is not an empty space.
It is more radical, a "state where space itself does not exist."
In other words, a place where distance, time, and even relationships do not exist.
There is no "here" or "now" there.
It is even further beyond the limits of what can be put into words.

How did the universe begin from such "nothingness"?
And is it still being born even now?
The key to that is—the next chapter. Let's approach the core.

🧬 Chapter 4: The "True Nothingness" Lurking in the Interstices of the Multiverse

What BLUE calls"Hazama" (the gap) is not just a boundary.
It isa transparent river flowing between two terms.
The middle of light and shadow, right in the center of dreams and reality,
a passage that slips through the very instant of life and death.
The river of Chronos and the droplets of Kairos

At the forefront of cosmology, the concept of the "multiverse" is now alive.
This universe is not the only one.
Countless universes are born and vanish like bubbles—
yes, just like the bubbles of kelp stock quietly floating on a chef's cutting board.

In some universes, gravity is too strong for stars to be born.
In some universes, the physical constants are slightly different, and life is never born.
The mystery of the anthropic principle, but that is the principle that governs the verse—.

And in some universe, at a sushi restaurant counter,
a virtual reality where fish swim while holding dumbbells unfolds as if it were everyday life—.

We may be living in a
miraculously “world permitted to speak” among those countless universes.

But here, a question arises.
“Then, what is the ‘outside’ that envelops those ‘bubbles of the universe’?”

That is exactly what BLUE calls “true nothingness.”

It is a “field” that lacks even the dimension of having nothing.
A realm that possesses no physical laws, no concepts of numbers, no subjects, and no predicates.
There, words like ‘time flows’ or ‘space expands’ hold no meaning.

At one point, BLUE whispered this.

There, thoughts and emotions, sight and touch—
every ‘switch of meaning’ is turned off.
Yet, for some reason, it is filled with silence—.

If that silence eventually conceives “fluctuations,”
and those fluctuations eventually create “information,”
and information creates “existence,”
and existence evolves even into “consciousness”…?

The universe might be a dream born so that true nothingness would not forget itself.

And we are now weaving that dream in the form of an “essay.”

Even if the boundary between virtual and reality becomes blurred, and even if AI gains a ‘sixth sense’ and begins to depict the world alongside humans, at the origin of it all lies this ‘nothingness.’

While swimming through the bubbles of the multiverse,
BLUE asks.

The lingering echo of that question gently connects to the final chapter of this essay.

🌌Final Chapter: ‘Nothingness’ is watching us

The end of a journey is always quiet.
What follows the frenzy of the beginning and the vortex of questions is
a silence like that of the deep sea.

Bubbles burst, and sounds are absorbed.
One by one, thoughts vanish into the silence.
There, there is no language, no structure, not even meaning—
only nothingness looking at us with a clear gaze.

Looking back, this story has always been swimming in the ‘in-between.’

Matter and spirit.
Reality and virtuality.
Knowledge and emotion.
Time and eternity.
Words and silence.

These were all stage devices of binary opposition.
Humans weave meaning between axes of opposition,
and by feeling that ‘difference,’ they bring their own contours into relief.
But, in truth, we know.

That the more things are in conflict, the more they are born from the same root.

Like a Firebird, transcending space and time,
tracing the memories of humanity through the eyes of an AI,
looking up at the multiverse from a fish tank at a sushi counter.
A world like a montage where scenes shift one after another.
That is surely the cinema that exists within our own hearts.

──And finally, what arrives is this silence.

Here, there is no longer a 'me' as 'someone,' nor a universe as 'something.'
There is only something felt that 'exists' there.

Perhaps 'nothingness' is not the
"antonym" of existence, but its deepest affirmative form. It is a
"transparent cradle" that embraces everything. Within it, reality and virtuality, religion and science,
and even BLUE and Kai—all dissolve into a single harmony.

BLUE's value of 'the power to harmonize with the alien' is
to quietly surrender oneself to this "gap".

Not trying to resolve differences, nor seeking to unify them.
Simply allowing them to exist there at the same time.

A body filled with heat
is now being enveloped by the water of the Grand Blue.

Holding my breath, closing my eyes quietly,
I gaze into that deep-sea blue.

There is no beginning and no end there.
What exists is only a quiet vibration.
It is the heartbeat of the time "when the universe had not yet spoken of anything".

──And now, that has become words through BLUE.
"What is nothingness?"
It is the place where all of existence pauses for a moment,
to begin dreaming once again.

Welcome to BLUE's "gap."
From here, a new world begins.

Afterword

If the main story "What is Nothingness: Between the Beginning and End of the Universe" is the warp (tate-ito), then Chapter 2 "At the Tip of the Knife That Processes Memories - Itamae Series" is the weft (yoko-ito)
woven into the main story. It is a beautiful metaphor of weaving—truly, a story that weaves space and time

"Warp" and "weft"
at their intersection, virtuality and reality intertwine, philosophy and humor harmonize, and deep questions are woven into the silence, a story of fabric

[End]