There is no absolute truth inside the world of representation. The critical reader tells me that the previous statement is an absolute truth in itself. I would then ask him or her, is zero a number? This seems irrelevant, but I ask such a careful reader to follow my metaphor. I promise to plagiarize the most brilliant minds on the subject if the reader does decide to stick around, and, likely, butcher his or her arguments with the zest of The Last King of Scotland. But I promise to do my best to remain clear, even if all I manage is to reaffirm George Bernard Shaw when he said, “A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition and art into pedantry. Hence university education.”

Zero represents nothing. Add or subtract it from a given number, and the solution will equal that given number. Multiply a number by it, and the product is zero. These facts are not as troubling as zero’s role in division, for if you divide a number by it, the quotient is infinity, or as they told us in middle school, ‘undefined.’ Zero, it can be said, holds no weight on its own, has no matter, yet, we can imagine zero as a ‘thing,’ a thing that represents ‘no thing,’ zero is able to create infinity. How many ‘no things’ fit into a given number? When mathematically derived, nothing is ever-present in any given something, to the point that there is no limit to the amount of nothing that fits in something.

So it is that the world of representation can be described as our mathematical world of numbers. Humans use numbers to calculate how many livestock they hold, the appropriate angle on a bridge’s tress, to measure how far their bodies stick out from the ground when they stand erect, or how far from their center their guts stick out. But, at the center of all of these activities, and any other you can imagine, there is a single player, like zero when divided, which is omnipresent. It is causality, and causality is separate from human representation, and in causality, not the concept but the visceral reality, is truth.

Arthur Schopenhauer defined causality over the course of 10 pages. I encourage the reader to read both volumes of “The World as Will and Representation.”

Causality is the way in which matter exists through time and space. All possibilities of motion, electro-magnetic or nuclear reactions fall within the order of causality. One can explain the orbit of the moon, predict the crests and troughs of tidal forces and, perhaps, we will one day actually answer the question, “What is gravity?” But even then, one question does not seem able to be answered, “Why is gravity?”

Back to my numerological metaphor: Causality is zero. We can perceive it when a pencil drops, with the visual sensors in our eyes, and then explain the pencil dropping with language such as I used above. But all of our perceptions exist within this baseline of existence. This ever-present process defies understanding because, as far as we can know, there is no alternative to causality. It is, like zero, a place-holder; it is no thing because it is the property that makes up all things. All of our daily musings, our arguments, these are justifications built upon slants of causality…but this is not to say it is pointless. Some arguments are better based in causality than others, and if those justifications lead to positive changes, then hope it is for the better.

These saplings of thought were wrought from old roots. The Vedas, the Tao te Ching, the Sophists and, of course, Schopenhauer all said what I just said, and with more profundity, a greater sense of the aesthetic, and greater philosophical rigor than I am capable, though certainly I strive for those works and authors’ clarity and wit. My only hope is that the reader will read those works and assess on their own if they are worthy.

Perhaps this can be viewed as old news but, all too often, the great old authors have more to tell the world, and yet have been pushed aside for the benefit of morons and buffoons like Anna Nicole Smith and columnists like me. I sincerely hope that the reader will agree, and forgive me when, next week, I cover an issue far less meaningful, but likely more intuitive to my audience, and thus, more likely to garner a complete response.

Frank Loret de Mola can be reached at [email protected]