Amazon Books Depository Category:  Philosophy Publisher: iff_Books ISBN-10:  1846947073 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 291 Copyright: August 16, 2011 ISBN-13: 9781846947070 A look at "nothing" - how it fared in history and its connection to the arts, to religion, to science, and questions as to what "nothing" is. Is nothing everything? As strange as that question looks at first sight, it will definitely make sense after reading NOTHING MATTERS. Provocative and accessible, free of jargon, NOTHING MATTERS shows that there is more to nothing than meets the eye. History, the arts, philosophy, politics, religion, cosmology - all are touched by nothing. Who, for example, could have believed that nothing held back progress for 600 years, all because of mistaken translation, or that nothing is a way to tackle (and answer) the perennial question 'what is art'? NOTHING MATTERS is a genuine attempt to look at the world in a different way, to give new angles to old problems and so to stimulate new thoughts. Sure-footedly, with flair and enthusiasm, Ronald Green Takes the reader on a path through nothing to everything it touches, linking facts and information that lead to surprising conclusions.

Book Review: Nothing matters - A Book About Nothing
All human life and endeavour is touched by 'nothing', but the more we think about 'nothing', the more there is to it, as this new book amply demonstrates

Like Gratiano, according to Bassanio in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Ronald Green 'speaks an infinite deal of nothing'.

The struggle to understand the concept of absolute emptiness, the absence of everything, has been going on for two thousand years, Green points out in Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing, or for at least as long as there have been written records of what people thought was important.

He explores the fundamental human need to pursue the mystery that is the negation of everything, not only within the obvious framework of philosophy, but also within the arts, science, religion, indeed, all that we humans do.

Tackles Nothing From All Possible Angles

As the opposite of everything, nothing seems to be the key to that most basic of questions: what does it mean to exist? And here lies the difficulty, for as soon as you contemplate nothing it becomes something. The word 'nothing' exists, of course, but how can nothing exist in any way?

This challenging but irresistible book – a reviewer's paradise for punning, itself much ado about nothing – tackles these and many other questions from all possible angles and with great good humour and aplomb, covering an astonishing amount of ground and argument (with, one must add, a valiant abstention from paronomasia wherever possible).

The powerful urge to reach towards nothingness (as opposed to nothing, which would place us in an existential quandary) is a common human trait so it's not surprising to see it manifested in religion and the arts, and Green spends a large part of the book discussing these areas. The idea that there must be something beyond what we can readily perceive or talk about, beyond what is rational, lies encompassed by the realm of mysticism.

How Nothing Held Back European Progress

Green tells the intriguing story of how, because of the Catholic Church's fear of nothing, engendered by a mistaken translation of 'zero' as nothing instead of a number, European progress in mathematics was held back by 600 years. For the Church, there could not be, and never could have been, nothing because God was eternal.

Also pursued exhaustively is the notion that nothing is a way to deal with the evergreen question: what is art? Green explores modern artists' fascination with the 'subject', concluding that art and nothing are 'like an unrequited love affair, with artists chasing what they can never reach'. While art can represent nothingness, it cannot show what is not: nothing.

Believing in nothing, and thinking about nothing, are other issues Green invites us to consider – for example, the difference between eastern and western religion, the former urging us to turn something into nothing, and the later, nothing into something; and then the big cosmological question: could there have been nothing before the Big Bang brought the universe into existence?

Book Makes One See Why Nothing Matters

A teacher and lecturer with postgraduate studies in linguistics and philosophy, Green has skipped through a semantic minefield to write an eminently readable book which provides much food for thought and certainly makes one see why 'nothing matters'. He succeeds in opening up pathways to a new way of looking at the world.

A perfect epigraph for the book would have been this, from Bob Dylan: 'Now, it’s all been done before/It’s all been written in the book/But when there’s too much of nothing/Nobody should look' (Too Much of Nothing, 1967).

When there's too much, certainly. But Ronald Green gives us just the right amount – of nothing.

•Green, Ronald, Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing. O-Books, 2011. UK £9.99 / US $18.95. ISBN 978-1-84694-707-0.


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Nothing Matters by Ronald Green - A Review
Nothing Matters - A Book About Nothing By Ronald GreenA book about nothing. The title intrigued me. Far more than Seinfeld’s ‘show about nothing’ which rarely made me laugh.

Green begins his philosophical discourse with an explanation of the historical importance of nothing. I knew that the zero (Green’s first description of nothing) had been brought to Europe from the Arabic countries in medieval times, but what I didn’t know about was the controversy it caused. Green describes clearly why the concept of nothing was so disturbing to the established church. If God is eternal there can never be a time when there was nothing.

Green traces the concept of nothing, in the form of the zero, from India through the Middle East before its uncomfortable acceptance in Europe, a journey which took much longer than you might expect. Having explored some historical attempts to understand nothing and the problems it caused, Green turns his attention to artistic attempts to portray nothing. Describing nothing this time as the goal of minimalism, Green tells some entertaining anecdotes about art and nothing. My own favourite relates to when the Mona Lisa was stolen and more people turned up at the Louvre to look at the space where it had been than turned up to look at the actual painting.


Green then returns to religion and nothing. This time he looks not only at Christian interpretations of nothing but also at the other monotheistic religions as well as pantheistic beliefs. It is interesting to see how he finds that every religion, sect and cult has something to say about nothing.

Finally Green focusses on philosophy and its treatment of nothing. Using his idea of the two kinds of nothing- the absence of something or the absence of everything - Green argues that many of the great philosophers were discussing the wrong kind of nothing. He even suggests that nothing is so central to the existence of humankind that it is probably beyond our understanding.

This is not a book to be dipped into or skimmed over a coffee break. Green writes very clearly and with a great deal of humour, but he is dealing with ideas that perhaps go to the very core of what it means to be human. That he can do so without the nihilistic melancholy of so many of the people he quotes is a tribute to his writing skills. Would I recommend this book? Yes, with the proviso that if you choose to read it you give the time and thought it deserves. You can buy the book on Amazon by clicking here.

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Posted 28th September by Paul Callaghan
Labels: reviews books

Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing Reviewed By James Broderick of Bookpleasures.com
Author: Ronald Green

Publisher: iff Books
ISBN: 978-1-84694-707-0

OK, let me first dispense with the clever-sounding puns that came to me as I was preparing to write this review: “This book is like nothing you’ve ever read”; “After reading this book, I’ve got nothing to talk about”: or, simply, “Prepare for a whole lot of nothing.”

But Ronald Green’s book, Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing, deserves far better and more serious treatment than cheap wordplay and snarky one-liners. Green has rendered in print a remarkably comprehensive guided tour of the historically rich, multi-faceted world of nothing. The breadth of argument he offers in this treatise on nothing is breathtaking. I had probably given nothing as little thought as most people so I was a perfect target for Green’s null encomium. I realize now that the author was perhaps right in his initially absurd-sounding claim that “nothing” is the foundation for everything – from religion to literature, physics to philosophy. Whole lot of nothing indeed.

Green, whom the book jacket refers to as “the ultimate researcher and delver,” has really written four books here, each dealing with a different aspect of nothing (not to be confused with “nothingness,” which he makes clear is quite a different condition).

Part one deals with the historically fraught relationship between “zero” and “nothing,” a tense and misunderstood alliance whose friction can be credited to intransigence on the part of the Catholic Church, which equated the numeral zero with the concept of nothing, thus making zero – and its proponents – persona non grata. You see, “nothing” simply can’t exist as a codified concept, the church argued, because God is always present, and he is always something (the ultimate something, to believers), and therefore zero/nothing represents a heretical stance toward the omnipresence of the almighty. Zero was therefore stamped out of existence by the Church fathers for more than 500 years in the Western World (though it flourished among Muslim mathematicians).

Part two deals with art and its attempts to portray “nothing” in painting, music, and literature. Green’s survey of artists who’ve felt compelled to nail down nothing as their subject reads like a Who’s Who of modern culture (writers Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, musician John Cage, painter Martin Creed, et al.). The problem they all face, Green points out, is that by painting, writing, or composing music, the very idea of nothing is transformed into something. It is no longer nothing. It’s very definitely something, even if it is a blank canvas or a silent composition (there are, after all, instructions to the musician about how long the silence should last, and under what conditions, etc.) Yet artists continue trying to capture the concept of nothing through their art.

Parts three and four are related: “Believing in Nothing” and “Thinking about Nothing.” The former address the role that “nothing” has played in the various creation myths of world religions and the latter looks at how philosophers have driven themselves (and their followers) crazy trying to prove the existence of something that has no defined existence.

For the most part, Green writes in an accessible style, but occasionally even he is done in by the circular, almost comic complexity of his subject matter. To wit: “Nothing is an enigma. Since nothing is the absence of everything, anything at all would stop nothing from being nothing. Or to put it another way: anything makes nothing something. And let’s go for another mind-cruncher: Nothing is where everything is not.”

I see. I believe I will have that drink now.

Green’s book is a worthy read for those willing to open their minds to a new way of thinking about the sum and substance of our existence. It’s as enlightening as it is challenging. On behalf of readers everywhere – and at the risk of seeming ungrateful – I’d like to say to Mr. Green: Thanks for nothing.