Lucas Stopper: Monism and Coffee (in class discussion 2)

 In class recently we have been discussing Parmenides’s idea of monism and the question of whether or not the void or a space between two things counts as something that exists or does not exist. I think this is a very interesting concept, and it invoked a discussion I used to have at my workplace regarding a similar question. Many of us at this coffee shop would argue over whether ordering “nothing” in one’s coffee meant one was ordering “something,” with the “something” in fact being “nothing.” It is a difficult question to write out rather than orally ask, but the example we often gave was a person walking up to the register and the conversation going like this: “One large coffee please,” “Okay, would you like anything in your coffee?” “no, I want nothing in my coffee.” We would use this conversation to pose the question: “Does ordering “nothing” in your coffee imply that the “nothing” is in fact a “thing” you can have in your coffee?” I think this relates to the discussion we have had in class, and though there is no real “answer” to this question, I personally believe that nothing can in fact be something, it is just perhaps something we can’t see. But, if we have a “concept” or nothing or the void, then it is in fact something that exists.