Nothing

Darkness is the absence of light. Shadow is the form produced by a physical object relative to where the light source is.

Nothing will come of nothing.

If behind the stuff of existence lies nothing, what lies behind the nothing?

Your question can't be answered because nothing isn't anything. "Is" in your question implies nothing has a property. But it doesn't (or, according to some people, it can have any number of them).

there can never be nothing. there is no absolute vacuum.

First I don't thing that possible due to the law of causality.

Secondly there isn't anything beyond nothing, there is nothing there for another thing to be "beyond", infinity plus infinity is still just infinity. Zero plus zero is still zero.

That's why I said that nothing is the absence of even the absence of everything.

nothing is nothing

but nothing is something

I'm just trying to get your existential panties in a twist.

No, it's not. The only thing nothing is, is a concept to explain the complete absence of any actual thing.

How many dogs do you have? Nothing.

I guess you're right, though I'd be interested in hearing how other languages handle the concept of "nothing."

nothing is something

Dogs are an actual thing. Nothing cannot be an actual thing, if it's an actual thing, it is something, not nothing.

No its not, it doesn't possess any actual being so therefore it can't be something because it doesn't exist.

Wait I thought of something.

What do you have in your hands? Nothing.

Oh wait, nothing? But you have nitrogen and oxygen molecules in your hands. Therefore, nothing is something.

nothing is nothing

>Serbian
Ništa. Ni + Šta
Ni = 'Neither', 'not'... As in ''Ni sunce ni mesec'', which means ''Neither sun nor moon''
Šta = Many things, usually means 'what?' or 'that which'.

So nothing would literally mean 'not even a whichever thing'.

everything is something

nothing is something

No, they are molecules, molecules are an actual thing.

Exactly.

Nothing is only something as far as an abstract concept. Other than that it's nothing, it is the complete lack of being.

Incomprehensible.

abstract nothing is something

is something nothing

or

is nothing nothing

0=2

>Rating Urizen over Orc

ITT: confused wannabe-metaphysicians

This is incorrect.

>everything is something
Universal quantifier cannot be the existential quantifier. Those are two different logical objects.

>nothing is something
No. "Nothing" means "everything that isn't something".

How Can Nothing Be Real If Something Isnt Real

It's not a real physical thing.

Nothing is nothing.

Some band who like to talk shit about Applebee's and threaten to kill themselves in one someday

So what about this. Most of everything, when viewed at a sufficient level of magnification, is composed of nothing. Think of the relative space between electrons and the nucleus of an atom. If that quanta of something - viewed at sufficient magnification - has relatively little substance in actuality, we run into a kind of infinite regress where every something has its composition of relatively less until the content of any physical object looks negligible. Every tangible thing looks like nothing from the standpoint of significant figures from this perspective.

nothing is nothing

Substance however little is still substance.

i.e. its verifiably the case that everything is nothing.

Correct.

But infinitely small substance must vanish from existence in accordance with the definitional necessities of the infinite.

nothing is something

Hиштo бpaт

Yes, for all x, x is x (irregardless of domain). Got any more trivial tautologies up your sleeve?

That's the most contradictory statement I can imagine at the current moment.

Everything is made up of a bunch of little things, whether there is empty space in between, (which is relative considering this empty space is really so minuscule) doesn't stop all those little things which make up big things still being things.

There is no such thing as infinitely small or infinitely large. If anything is infinite there is no term in existence for the size of an infinite thing other than being absolutely continuous, without end, everlasting. Units of measurement as far as big or small have no place when it comes to infinity.

Empirical substance that is infinite need not necessarily obey or behave or mimic the behavior of mathematically infinite objects.

>i don't like the words, w_1 and w_2, you use to designate such-and-such objects, therefore such-and-such objects don't exist. rather, they only exist if you refer to them by my words, m_1, m_2, and m_3.
Kekedoo krekitty

At any rate,
>There is no such thing as infinitely small or infinitely large.
This is cool and all but can you restate this without begging the question?

Tell me how I begged the question.

Well, buttercup, you assumed a certain conclusion without arguing for it. Do you also want me to spoon-feed you the definition of "begging the question"?

-->

I'm just pointing out that you can always observe a smaller piece and that in observing the smaller piece it invariably contains a quanta of nothing separating structures of the existential, but you can keep observing smaller and smaller and smaller things all of which it turns out share this self same characteristic. So what if you could - hypothetically - keep observing smaller and smaller and continue to observe the vanishing of existential substance. You would still see some existential object since you focus in on it, but at every stage we would have 'less of it than previously anticipated'. Like says. It doesn't seem to behave like you would expect on account of this transfinite regression.

it ain't shit

The argument was that measurement of size implies it has a limit, infinity does not have a limit. It is limitless. The only thing which explains the "size" of infinity is infinity itself. Even then, size is still not accurate, it has no size because it can't be measure because it has no ending nor beginning.

Eventually you will end up not being able to go any smaller. The only thing beyond the smallest you can go, is there not being anything there at all. Any substance no matter how small is still substance and by extension still a thing.

Aren't you conflating the meaning of "size" of ordinary language and the "size" of axiomatic set theory? They mean two different things.

I don't understand what you mean. Everything we measure is measured by using numbers. Something is so and so inches long, or so and so inches tall etc

Why would it stop? Scientists have postulated that it stops before when they said 'atoms were the very smallest things in existence' but they were wrong. They discovered smaller things. I just want to point out that if it doesn't stop then we have realm of inquiry where existential things seem to blend with nothing and what makes that so hard to accept?

Because it is limited. Eventually you'll reach a point where you cannot divide it any further. Yes, that is true, but I don't see how it matters. There may be smaller things, but no matter how small they become, they still possess substance, and still remain things, which means they are not ever nothing.

nothing is nothing

Everything you see at some level of consideration - namely the one I brought up - has its composition of 99.999repeating nothing. What if the only something at all is the something you call nothing.

If it's something it's not nothing. Explain this 99.999 nothing. Do you mean empty space?

>No. "Nothing" means "everything that isn't something".

You just contradicted yourself.

nothing is something

or

nothing is nothing

What I see behind my head.

The only way in which nothing actually exists is as a concept in our minds.

Other than that, nothing is not any actual thing.

There once was a great king who had conquered the world, but he was bored because there was nothing left for him to do. He climbed the half completed tower of babel and looked in every direction but everywhere he looked he saw his banner fly.

He asked the great philosopher, his personal tutor from childhood, if there was any country he had not yet conquered or treasure he did not posses. The philosopher had no answer but told the Conquer that there was another sage who might know. A blind hermit who lived far to the east.

Gathering up a host of his greatest warriors he traveled to the east in search of the hermit. He was found living in a barrel, and being blind did not recognize the king. The king however recognized him from his teacher's discription and held a great deal of respect for somebody spoken of so highly by his teacher.

The king asked the hermit if he knew as much as his teacher had said. The hermit replied "I know of nothing."
The king asked the hermit if there was anything he lacked. The hermit replied "You lack nothing"
The king asked the hermit where he cound find this nothing, and who could give it to him. The hermit replied "Nowhere is nothing and nobody possesses it"
The king asked the hermit, how can I find nothing? The Hermit by now had gotten slightly anoyed, and just wanted the king to get out of his sun, so he told the king "Keep going east, deep into the wastelands, soon you will have nothing."

The king smiled at this and rode off east until the tower of babble was no longer visible beyond the horizon and he found himself hopelessly lost. As the sun set behind him. He began to tremble with fear. He who was afraid of nothing, had found nothing. He who would be defeated by nothing, never returned.

Nothing is what exists when we say nothing exists.
Nothing is what lasts forever when we say nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is what you lack when you have everything.
Nothing is what only the blind can see.
Nothing is what only a fool knows.
Nothing is what only the destitute have.

nothing is something

but doesn't that still exist

There is no such thing

Yes I mean empty space. And I think I've explained the contention relatively well. 'If its something its not nothing' is a reduction because mathematically the object is 99.9repeating percent nothing which is functionally 100%. The class of thing that we have to admit occurs in the blindspot created by rounding this digit as we've been taught to do. Of course I could just be ruseing you.

But not actually 100% nothing. Empty space is still something, because you need empty space in order for things to actually be able to occupy it.

Ruse or not I have enjoyed the conversation. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I continue to learn as much as I can, and that is really all we can do.

I am

Look straight out of the back of your head and tell me what you see there.

nothing exists

Nothing is the absence of everything.

Nothing is unfathomable, because we do not exist in nothing. In our universe there is always something.

The sound of one hand clapping

A knife that cuts itself

Actually I think its contentious and that either answer is acceptable in lieu of having a doctorate in physics. Im just using reverse psychology to get you to see things from my perspective.

No I didn't. Please take a class in formal logic.

No. You can't have shadow without light.

Light would be more the absence of darkness.

I see your perspective. It's not far off from what I used to think, definitely more developed but the concept is still the same.

For me it's just very clearly cut.

A vacuum with no conscious observer is nothing

>What is

lol fucked from the get-go.

...

This is more or less Zeno's paradox. Not exactly revolutionary stuff.

500$ isn't an option, retard.

'Nothing' is anything not created by 'something' in your mind. It is unknown, and can not be except as a contradictory concept.

The abscense of something, you can see nothing, need nothing, have nothing, owe nothing, do nothing. In every example you there is a clear lack of anything being related to the verb. That's nothing.

$500 is nothing

Nothing is everything.

Nothing is more real than nothing.

Here's an actual quote from Beckett, relevant to the OP's question:

who may tell the tale
of the old man?
weigh absence in a scale?
mete want with a span?
the sum assess
of the world's woes?
nothingness
in words enclose?

-- From Watt (1953)

"Nothing" is an English word signifying absence.

Nothing is not a thing, but the idea of nothing is.

Words and ideas are not the components of reality, they are just how we process the information it conveys to us.

Go away Parmenidies