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So Philosophy and Math are a weird combination to write an article about. I mean, I’ve never seen them even drift near each other. Math is all about practicality and proof systems, while philosophy requires you to question everything.

How could I join the two of these topics and end up creating a very important link in our journey of changing the world? How could I even have made this breakthrough? Isn’t that remarkable?

It is, thank you very much.

Shall we begin now?

Just a quick note, though. This is the second post of a blog series My Formula for Changing the World. If you’ve not yet read the first post yet, you can go check it out if you wish to so that you can understand things clearly: Changing the World: How to Change the World?

What are you when you are nothing?

So, I never liked Math.

I think you should just know that about me before you get to know me; in case, any of you is a math wiz and would freak out if you get to know that fact later on.

I hated math. Math gave it right back to me.

It’s mutual.

Now I’m saying this all right now, because no matter how much I loathe math, I can’t deny its existence and significance in the world of science and technology, and because I’m speaking of the world itself, I think I would have to include both philosophy and math. Both being the subjects I didn’t have a particular liking to.

Universal Sets and Complements.

When I was in eleventh grade, I studied universal sets and complements.

You know, that A, A’ stuff.

Here, let me explain in case any of you hated math too and never bothered to remember it.

It basically shows a universal set, U, which is comprised of A, and A’.

What isn’t A, is A’. What isn’t A’, is A. They are mutually exclusive.

But what about when A is nothing? What is A when it is nothing?

Technically, it would be the empty set, ɸ (read, Phi). And also, technically, Phi is a subset of the set A too. So, ɸ is a part of A too. But since it’s just a null set, we won’t talk about it.

Instead we’ll talk about what isn’t A.

So, the concept I want to put up right now, is, if this world wasn’t A, which is the huge globe in the diagram, then this world would be A’, which, you can call the space, that is, all the matter outside the earth.

One thing we need to keep in mind is that we are not looking at the diagram of solar system here, we are not being material in our study. This is not the literal planet, instead, is a diagram of it, a representation of the world.

So if the world wasn’t A, it would be A’. The complement of A. It would be A subratrced from U.

That’s the basic math in it. I’ve always hated math.

So now I can say that the change in the world we speak of, it must be hidden somewhere within A’.

Briefing in other words, I would say that if we live in A, and want to change something in A, then we have to look for the change in A’. Because of course it isn’t in A, and that’s why we want it in the first place because it’s not present in the state of things as of now.

So the answer we want is definitely hidden in A’—in that which isn’t A.

This was the technical, mathematical stuff.

Then comes the philosophy we need to think through for preparing our formula for changing the world.

Together they’d be everything we need—and philosophy and math for changing the world.

The Math behind Universal Sets

Now bringing this discussion into a smaller, more individual level, I would ask you this question—If you were nothing, what would you be?

If you had no label, no definition, no name. If you had no pre-determined or -distributed identity, what would you call yourself, and what would you want others to call you?

Do you know that? Have you ever thought about that? If you didn’t let anyone else define you, how would you define yourself?

Because, basically everything we have, everything we think, everything we believe, is to some extent—handed over to us by other people (mostly adults) who were around us when we were kids.

Studies say that seven is the age till which we record, we record in our brain our memories, we build our characters, our mindset, our dreams, our words, our behaviors.

Once we turn seven we slowly and gradually take a turn towards now producing what we have learnt.

Earlier, we were consuming, now we are giving. More on that later.

Self-Questioning

Do you know what would you be if you were nothing?

You’d be you.

Nothing else. Just you.

You’d be just what you were always meant to be. Just what you should’ve been.

The society wouldn’t be putting their labels on you. And you would be doing everything with your own capabilities and your own mindset.

Now, I won’t deny the role of society. Of course it’s important.

A newborn can’t be left just to fend for himself or herself, they need someone. And all the people around us play the role of that someone.

But then there comes a time, when people think about doing something phenomenal. They think about changing the world. And that is when this comes in.

To change the world, you need to look at it like you’ve never looked at it before. For that you need to change your own vision. Your own way of perceiving things.

If you were nothing, you’d be you.

So isn’t that just what you should be to actually change the wolrd? A clean slate? A blank mind?

Only through that can you begin looking at the world like you’ve never looked at it before.

That brings us to our next topic of discussion.

Babies and the World

A baby doesn’t judge.

They don’t even care. They don’t care what you are, what you think, what you do, heck, they don’t even bother if you’ve just gotten out of prison yesterday. Children just find you fascinating in a way only a little child can.

A child’s mind is a clean slate, as I said before—we record till the age of seven. We’re just taking things in, forming conceptions, looking at our parents and older siblings and other adults and observing and try to grasp it all within our mind.

Taking it right to the beginning, the moment of birth, we would never know what goes through the mind of the newborn.

But we can assume that it would be completely blank of any knowledge of this world we live in and that which they’re entering.

And that is why every newborn child has a potential to change this world.

Now it’s up to the hard-headed, stone-cold society whether it lets the child do that, or it tramples it under its hevay, fancy shoe. You never know.

Every newborn can become a legend but most of them just don’t ever get the chance or the opportunity or the mentorship.

That’s a sad fact.

And the truth is, we never know we’re making a mistake until we face the direct consequences and realise our fault when we look at things in a different way.

I think I’ve repeated this enough, but once again doesn’t hurt. If you need to change the world, start looking at it in a very different way.

Only a small amount of people actually change the world, most just dream of it. So if you want to be in that minority, you need to start thinking and acting like the minority. Being in the crowd never helps.

Visual Examples

Now let’s look at this diagram.

It’s our simple, old earth. Nothing foreign or unfamiliar.

This is the planet we’ve all walked on, our whole lives, and yet how many of us have actually looked at it this way?

Now what do you confer from this drawing? It’s not like, in the first diagram I’m focusing on earth, and in the second, I’m focusing on the space that surrounds earth.

No, that’s not the matter. Relax, we aren’t going to be talking about the galaxy, though that wouldn’t be so bad in itself.

We’re instead talking about positive and negative space.

The Philosophy Behind Positive and Negative Space

In the first diagram, we’re focusing the earth, occupying the positive space, because that’s where our eyes go to. Because it’s in the spotlight. In the second diagram, however, our eyes are kind of being drawn to the solar system and the neighbouring planets, because here, this orbit surrounding the earth occupies the positive space.

(Remember that this is not a proven case study, it’s just an experiment, and so I think there would be people who’d look at the earth still. And that’s what we have to do.)

Look at the focus, no matter if it occupies the positive or the negative space.

Part of finding out the breakthrough lies in looking at the main object of focus, not just the positive and negative space, or the foreground and the background. It lies in knowing what things you have to look at, and what things you have to ignore.

It isn’t necessary to always focus on the light, because sometimes the light might not direct you to the right place. Sometimes the light might misguide you.

So what we need to learn instead, is the art of looking at the same things—whether they are in positive or negative space.

The main reason for being able to find the perfect change and the perfect way to bring it, lies in the ability to look at the thing that needs to be looked at whether it’s black or white, positive or negative, in the background or the foreground.

We still focus on that thing which needs to be focused at. We still focus on the change we are working toward, even when our eyes are blinded or the goal is shadowed.

If we don’t lose our way, we find that thread of change.

That thread of change is all we need to start a revolution.

Will the Sun Come up Tomorrow?

It’s actually a really philosophical question, not something I’m saying just for fun.

Do us humans really have any idea that the sun will come up tomorrow?

This question of wondering is really a favourite among philosophers and thinkers. David Hume said that there is no guarantee at all that the sun will rise after this night.

He said that there is nothing at all known as “cause and effect.”

So we can never say that any event A “causes” another event B. A can precede B, or A can succeed B, and their correlation might work perfectly, but it still won’t prove the notion that A caused B.

According to Hume, therefore, the sun may not rise tomorrow.

As simple as that.

Just because the sun has risen on the planet for the past few billion years doesn’t necessarily mean that the sun will rise tomorrow. Yeah, if you say so, there’s a really strong likeliness that the sun will be witnessed peeking out from behind the east side tomorrow, but it isn’t guaranteed.

I know, this is a really thought-provoking question, because us humans have always slept at night surer of this fact than any other that tomorrow when we’ll be up, there’ll be sunshine and light and all warm, bright morning glow.

Amidst all of that, this particular thought seems like a punch to the gut.

Not to worry, not to worry.

I think we should start from the very beginning.

From babies and the sun.

Imagine you being born, you know, because you can only imagine, not like remember or anything.

Questions of Philosophy and Math

Okay, just a question arose, why can’t we remember our birth? Why can’t we remember our parent’s face when they took us in our arms after we were born? Why can’t we ever remember the important bits? Like, why can’t we remember our first day of preschool?

Drifting back to the topic, we really have got to wonder if the sun would really come up tomorrow.

Maybe the world will end.

This isn’t meant to create some sort of fright or disheaval in the minds of people, and it is instead spoken here for the reason of telling everyone that there is no particular guarantee for the world to keep on thriving tomorrow.

Anything could happen.

So why fear the change?

If the sun isn’t hesitant to bring such a huge change to the world, so why are we?

Why be afraid of what this new development would bring?

Anything could happen.

Taking Leave

So what would this world be when it is nothing?

Everything brings us back to this.

There’s this one particular question in my mind, always teasing me and in a way annoying me too. Every time. Everywhere. I never thought I would ever be able to find so much depth into the impossible combination of philosophy and math, but I did. I ended up being pulled into this whole new world. With many new questions.

What am I when I am nothing?

And what is this world when it is nothing?

If this isn’t A, then it is A’.

And in A’ lies your answer.

Want to get your imagination and thoughts running out of your bounds? Take a look here, Ten Questions You Should Ask Yourself Today

Thank you for reading.