What is nothing?

Tim Robbins

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Son Goku

Tim Robbins wrote:

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinions...

I'd imagine it's a human construct in the ultimate sense. Since we surrounded by "things" locally, nothing would have to exist somewhere "away" from us. However even in that sentence I'm giving nothing the property of having a location, preventing it from being truly nothing.

This is probably going to be a hard thing to discuss.

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark?

Nothing(ironically), according to current theory.

Seloth

Nothingness is actually my biggest fear.

Not the thought of being alone or have nothing with me but the thought of that once I die my consciousness will not exist,it will be nothingness yet how am I to fear something in which I do not know it has happened to me when it has happened.

Nothingness is a comprehension of which the human mind cannot explain,Simply trying to think of Nothingness and your head will start to hurt.

Mrs. MacGyver

I don't beleive nothingness exists. If you have ever tried to empty your mind of thoughts it still focused on something. I think its a human creation but an impossible reality. Just wondering how can consciousness not exist?

Mr. Presentable

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Nothing is what's between things.

Mrs. MacGyver

But isn't space an entity and dosen't this exist between things?
Same goes for energy, it can't be created or destroyed, it's at all places at all times (think of all the molecules floating around). Where is there space for 'nothing' to exist?

PS sorry if i come across as confusing but i can think of another way to put my thoughts on this down. sorry.

nyarlothothep

I guess it could exist outside this reality, if there is an external reality to this one. It may be that nothing is not nothing but what we approximate as being nothing (because we havent got much to go on because we havent experienced it). Or there could be nothing in this reality in anomalies. shrugs haplessly.

Mrs. MacGyver

I suppose it could, but will we ever know other realities outside of our domain in order to comprehend this?

nyarlothothep

Possibly though I cant see it happening yet.

griffdaddy

you should see some of the philosophical theories of holes (I'm not joking), they get pretty complicated!

Steve_o

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Nothing: The Absense of Something, but is nothing by definition something???

I.e. a room with nothing in it....is nothing something???

Or am i mad??

SkepticOne

Nothing contains everything.

mike65

Nothing is simply shorthand for indicating the absence of something. Its not a
desciption of a true void as there is no such thing. Or if there is, it does'nt actually exist, cos if nothing is literally nothing it can't exist.

QED

Mike.

skeptic griggsy

That, Mike61, is my understanding. How could there be absolutely nothing anyway? Matter-energy is forever according to physics.It is a matter for scientists to discover which theory of bounce or bud is right or if Hartle-Hawking is right that the cosmos just is.:cool:

Emoocrap

you may remember me from a long time ago, round new years rather.

anywhoooo.

on this topic, just to point it out, infiniti is equally opposite absolute nothing.

to the human mind, nothing does not exist, even by adding the word or symbol or what-have you, we have attached something to describe nothing. Nothing can NOT be described, for once you described it, it became something but since it is Nothing, you will never describe it.

it is the same as trying to identify Infinity. you simply can not. infinity is absolute everything, it is everyword, ever hair, every person it is EVERYTHING. it is that word too and these. you can not describe it. its a concept is all. it is a state of mind. infiniti can not be described, as nothing can in this world. you can NOT describe anything in this world, look at a paper clip, try to describe it to someone, try to describe it to yourself. you cant really, its not as good as seeing it, well its the same with this. and everything else in life.

you can not describe it, you must experience it. haha unfortunately, all who have tried to experience infiniti or absolute zero, ended up in the looney bin.


this is one of my favorite topics, as i have an incessant need to argue and seeing as we are ranting about unknowns, and the indescript, we can argue ALLLL blooddy day

sturgo

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

There is no such thing as nothing.

Spyral

it would be the absence of something, then that raises what do we percieve to be something.


for example you could go into a room with 'nothing' in it even though there is air and 4 walls and bacteria and so on there.

Myrddin

nothing...is whats on the bloody television lately

walshb

I do not believe in the term 'NOTHING' and I always relate it when I hear of experts and astronomers talk of when time begun? or when the universe was created. Does anyone believe that 'time' began? I do not, because if time began, what happened a second before or two seconds or a thousand seconds before. I also believe the universe could NOT have begun, because if it did, what existed just before it began. NOTHING had to exist just before it began and IMO NOTHING cannot exist..

Offalycool

Strictly speaking it is a consequence of how our understanding works; our understanding is binary on a basic level. I would argue that nothing could be a person’s personality and feelings after they die. It is hard to define there existence in the first place. However how can they exist in a physical sense after death?

EDIT: I know some may disagree with referring to personalities/feelings as if they were objects in the world like tables and chairs. I realise the personality as we see it could just be our understanding of a purely physical body behaving in a physical way.
I am however referring to the trends, habits and sensitivities of any individual.. Developed through the years of life it has experienced. All this behavioural storage.. is it merely the stuff our body’s are made out of rearranging itself like the bytes on a hard drive, losing all relevance with decomposition, or is its existence unexplainable by our current understanding of matter and the nature of who we are. Are people just mechanised systems responding to stimulus, or do we reach into life and mould it through an independent will, unexplainable by science.
If personalities or feelings cannot be accounted for in a physical sense, that is if personality/ feelings can’t be broken down and physically identified, a unique construction in the body; there are strong reasons to believe in the immortality/nothingness of the persona or soul, if u want to call it that.

aidan24326

Mrs. MacGyver wrote:

Just wondering how can consciousness not exist?

That would be shortly after your heart stops pumping blood to your brain,
which unfortunately will happen one day for us all. As best we know consciousness is just a manifestation of complex brain activity, that's all. Your brain dies and the complex neural interactions that give rise to what we perceive as 'consciousness' cease to be. No use thinking of it any other way.

As for true nothingness, as in no matter, no energy, no space, nothing - as something we have not, will not and cannot ever experience I'd see it as something completely outside the realm of human understanding. For any kind of life to exist, human or otherwise, there has to be some kind of universe for that life to exist in i.e. there has to be 'something'. One thing's for sure, a state of absolute nothingness will not give rise to any entities capable of understanding it. It is the ultimate unknowable.

Is such a state possible? Not in our universe obviously, and that's as much as we're ever going to know. Although if our universe could be shown to be infinite in all directions or as walshb said 'just there' then that would seem to leave nowhere left to hide for the elusive nothingness.

banaman

At least part of the problem is how we use words and what language actually does.

For example when asked "what's that over there" we tend to name the object by what its use is e.g the word "table" doesn't tell me what it is, it merely ascribes the object to that category of objects that have a certain function i.e. tables. It tells me nothing about its shape, size or molecular composition.

Likewise "thing" is obviously a corporeal object which is solid enough to register on our sense of touch.

Thus nothing is hard to define because we cannot sense it, nor can we describe it by what it isn't, which is our other usual means of categorising objects/sensations/phenomena.

After all "words are to reality like a map is to the countryside." Don't know who said that but it is relevant here I think.

Capt'n Midnight

If you had the 12" version of Living Doll with Cliff Richard and the Young Ones you'd hear something where one of them is saying how the 12" is the same as the 7" and Neil gets quite excited about the concept of "five inches of nothing"


From a brief history of time Mr Hawkings said something about complex time at the start of the universe. This upsets nothing. It's not Zero on the number line, complex numbers mean other dimensions and stuff.

You need energy for empty space to exist in so even empty space isn't nothing as it has a low amount of energy, but due to the nature of quantum fluctuations you can create short lived particles out of it, maybe enough to create a very very short lived universe ?

is it the same as the word void ?

18AD

Tim Robbins wrote:

Q: What is nothing?

A:

Sonnenblumen

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Ever try to pour an empty bottle ? Nothing happens, but I don't know when it starts or ends, and even though I cannot see or touch it, nothing is definitely present.

eoin5

yea nothing is perfectly clear in some senses, like whats more evil than the devil - nothing, whats more apocaliptic than the earth exploding/disappearing - nothing. It get tough in a sense of space though, saying that nothingness exists seems like an oxymoron.

aequinoctium

science is not limited by the microlevel

although relativistic quantum mechanics is a success, the microlevel is not fully explained.

many events will also only happen on the macrolevel also eg. blackholes require a huge amount of mass to collapse on itself

Tim Robbins

Sonnenblumen wrote:

Ever try to pour an empty bottle ? Nothing happens, but I don't know when it starts or ends, and even though I cannot see or touch it, nothing is definitely present.

No, some of the elements in the bottle are diffusing with what is outside the bottle. "Nothing" can't just mean something you can't see.

Akrasia

The Ancient Greek atomists believed that the universe was made up of two things, 'Matter' and 'void'

I think that sums it up pretty well if we adjust it a bit so that Matter = energy vibrating slowly.

Void is the infinite space in which matter exists. It doesn't mean it is 'empty' space, there are lots of things in it, but void is the room that allows things to move. It allows objects to vibrate and things to pass through each other. It is the opposite of density (low density = high void, high density = low void)

Void doesn't exist as any physical thing. It is a concept that we can know and understand by it's relationship to something else (just like 'dryness' does not exist, it's just the absence of wetness, and coldness doesn't exist, it's just the absence of heat and darkness doesn't exist, it's just the absence of light)

Hudson4ever

Nothingness is what occupied the universe before infinity began:D

Rossibaby

nothing is simply our understanding of the absence of something physical...there is no such thing as nothing imo...eg.''i look deep inside my ehart and i feel nothing''.someone doesnt actually feel nothing...its just the absence of love,happiness,sadness etc etc