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SUMMARY:Why Nothing Matters - Ronald Green
DTSTART:20120221T190000Z
DTEND:20120221T220000Z
UID:TALK34966@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Andrew N Holding
DESCRIPTION:Why should nothing matter? If anything matters\, why should no
 thing matter? And yet it does\, for there isn’t anything\, it seems\, th
 at nothing does not touch\, or anything that does not touch nothing. Histo
 ry\, philosophy\, religion\, science\, art\, literature\, music – all lo
 ok towards nothing at some point\, stimulating questions that would otherw
 ise not be asked.\n\nWho\, for example\, could have believed that nothing 
 held back progress for 600 years in the Middle Ages\, all because of mista
 ken translation\, or that nothing is a way to tackle (and answer) the pere
 nnial question "what is art?"? Ronald Green uses nothing in a genuine atte
 mpt to look at the world in a different way\, to give new angles to old pr
 oblems and so to stimulate new thoughts.\n\nWhat is this nothing\, that we
  can’t actually see\, touch or feel? Is it absolute? Is it relative to e
 verything else? If we are able to think about it\, write and read about it
 \, is it something\, and if so wouldn’t it then not be nothing?\n\nThis 
 is precisely the mystery of nothing – that the more we think about it\, 
 the more there is to it.\n\nDisarmingly invisible\, the point of nothing 
 – to paraphrase Bertrand Russell on philosophy – is to start with some
 thing so simple as to seem not worth examining\, and to end with something
  so paradoxical that no one will believe it.\n\nRonald Green is the author
  of "Nothing Matters – a book about nothing" (iff-Books). Philosopher\, 
 linguist\, university lecturer and ESL teacher\, with 13 ESL books publish
 ed\, Ronald has lectured and given workshops in Europe\, North and South A
 merica and the Middle East on linguistics\, ESL and the use of the Interne
 t in education. His  short stories have been published in Nuvein magazine\
 , Tryst\, Aesthetica\, the Sink and Unholy Biscuit. He has completed a phi
 losophical novel and co-authored a psychological thriller with strong phil
 osophical underpinnings. For the past five years he has been thinking seri
 ously about nothing\, culminating in his recently-published book.
LOCATION:The Maypole
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