What is nothing?

[Live_Laugh_Candy]

To me there is no such thing as nothing your always doing something no matter what...wheather it's breathing, thinkin, sitting,etc
your always doing doing somerthing only when your dead is when your arent doing anything and that is just slightly because...you (as in your body) will be laying there..  

[BananasRgood4u]

Nothing is something with no existence. The definition of nothing relies on on the existence of something. If there is nothing than there is something.
So does nothing exist?
Can you really have nothing?  

[KaisenKItsune]

Kenutsu Yasashiku

What is nothing?

Nothing is the absense of everything. When everything is gone, nothing is left.

So can nothing exist physically? The answer is no. If you get rid of all the heat, all the light, all the matter, all the movement ect. You still have things. Getting rid of heat leaves you with cold, ridding yourself of light yealds darkness. Having no matter leaves you with emptyness, and no movement is still ness. ((Basically all of them combined is a lack of energy, except perhaps matter... )) anyway... theere is also time. I have no idea how you can get ride of it because even nothing can be marked by time.

Can you find nothing or have nothing? Yes. Now this does not contradict the above paragraph for the simple fact that nothing EXISTS as an IDEA, and an idea is not a physical object. Nothing is an idea that describes something that does not exist.

So what is true nothing? The answer is I have no earthly or unearthly clue. Because true nothing cannot exist, there for we cannot think of it, cannot speak of it, cannot even imagine it because true nothing never has and never will exist in any way what so ever. Because if it does it ceices to be nothing and becomes something.

Well, I hope that is not too wordy for you all.

burning_eyes  

[Bearorist]

Nothing is everything that cannot be perceived.  

[Intelife]

Wow.

I've read through just about this entire thread, and I gotta say I love all the partially-informed realists in this guild. I also love the two dozen poorly formed answers to the question. Seriously people, think it out or don't answer.

I also have a question, since this forum is for philosophy: why is it that everyone supposes that, because we label nothingness as 'nothing' it automatically becomes something? Why can't there be the abstract, of which the name and definition are substantial, but in the world outside of a dictionary it truly is indefineable? Why must everyone say that nothing is a paradox, being something and nothing at the same time? And what ever happened to people actually lining two sides of an argument equally, instead of jumping into the same lake?

^^ Feel free to yell, scream, or otherwise discuss. Just don't flame. You could get banned.  

[R0ssby]

locke317

I agree that nothing is the absence of everything. While I would agree that it can't be accomplished, I would like to propose a scenario. If empty space was cooled down to absolute zero, could it be considered nothing? There would be no heat, no matter, no energy, and no movement. Could time be said to stop for that part of space?

I suppose, that in that scenario it could be considered nothing. But since there are physical laws as to why absolute zero can never be reached, nothingness is still hypothetical. Or at least that's my take on it. However, in that case, there would be no one around to debate the meaning of 'nothing'.  

[HellCatMurasame]

nothing is the absence of something, but it is also an opertuntiy  

[Tyrannotaur]

Intelife

I also have a question, since this forum is for philosophy: why is it that everyone supposes that, because we label nothingness as 'nothing' it automatically becomes something? Why can't there be the abstract, of which the name and definition are substantial, but in the world outside of a dictionary it truly is indefineable? Why must everyone say that nothing is a paradox, being something and nothing at the same time? And what ever happened to people actually lining two sides of an argument equally, instead of jumping into the same lake?

I agree that in putting a label on nothing that we have indeed made it something. this creates the paradox that when we recognize nothing we see the absence of something and label it as nothing; thus, in turn we have made it something. For the absence things is surely something.

The conclusion that i have reached here is that nothing is in fact something. Nothing is the label we have given to the absence of matter, energy, thought, etc...

by its own definition, nothing is a paradox. For the very existence of the word is something. To truly have an absolute emptiness one would have to expunge all matter, space, time, energy, and thought, and then it would have to have no names or labels. And it could not be known, for one cannot know nothing.  

[flavored pencils]

hummm, great thinking! i've never thought of that before! its interesting!  

[Decoy_ Soft word]

If Nothing is the absence of everything, then Nothing is still something. It is that which is absent.  

[Bruce of House Banner]

'Nothing' is that absence of existence which precipitates 'something.'

For example, before a rock is placed in the sand, nothing is in the sand.  

[coffeeismyfuel]

I believe that with death, "nothing" comes with it. I don't want to get into religion by saying that there is no heaven. I'm just going by what has been proven thus far. Moving On. Yes, the world keeps going on even after a single person dies. But for that person there is nothing.  

[Wonyky]

nothing is the absince of something or the absince of matter in short nothing is just nothing. and that is the one and only truth ninja  

[Zariah Khi]

nothing is when you're asks what are you doing and you say nOthing but ur doing it at the same time...lol
jst got that from Christopher robin in a winnie d pooh film... smile  

[The Solipsist]

Nothing is the whole of reality before your life begins.
Nothing is the whole of reality after your life ends.

Unobtainable, impossible, a concept.
It cannot exist at the same time that the infinite does.
And yet, any middle ground between the two seems upon consideration also impossible.
A thing that makes the grey area invisible.

An almost universally (and sometimes questionably mis-) used layman's term for a negligible amounts of things.