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I've been thinking about "nothing"

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Axu94
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Posted 01/14/08 - 08:14 AM:	#11
jimRH7 wrote: I was also thinking about a vacuum, I thought that since a vacuum can effect things it must exist, like a gas diffusing out into it, but that doesn't work if you say that the diffusing is entirely a property of the gas...it's like saying darkness can kill a plant (axu94). The thing is, nothingness is not materia, but it exists as an abstract idea. The simple thing here is that "nothing" is the very opposite to existance, well, not opposite, but something that is nothing does not exist, does it? And about that darkness can kill a plant, is not a very good definition, if you ask me, since it's not the plant sucking darkness into itself and dying, but the fact that it doesn't receive enough light to get the energy it needs to live. The same thing with the vacuum, it's not the the vacuum itself that affects things, it's the absence of various gasses that it blocks out, usually oxygen or carbon dioxide.
Everything one can imagine is a possible reality.

Yahadreas
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Posted 01/14/08 - 08:53 AM:	#12
Nothing = 'no thing'. It is the lack of a thing. To say that nothing is something is nonsensical. The sentence is a contradiction.
I both love and hate language with a passion.

Philonus
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Posted 01/21/08 - 09:02 AM:	#13
I agree that "nothing" exist as an abstract idea but an idea has to have conceptual substance or meaning to it. If nothing did exist as an idea then it would be paradoxical because while nothing is an idea it doesn't have any substance that all ideas have. When I speak of conceptual substance what I meant is that it has to have meaning, definition, and linguistic properties. But if nothing has no meaning or definition then it is not an idea. So my logical argument is this. 1) An idea has to have conceptual substance or meaning 2) "Nothing" has no conceptual substance or meaning 3) Therefore Nothing is not an idea I did a little study on astronomy and I found out that scientist claim that 87% of the universe which consist of nothing but space actually consist of matters in which we cannot see with our naked eyes. These matter are called Dark Matter, So if dark matter replaces our idea of Space (which consist nothing) then the idea of nothing does not exist in reality. If you were to open a can and there was "nothing" then you would be quiet wrong because inside that can there is air. So as some people say in the thread "nothing" does not exist concretely. If my argument that nothingness is not an idea has logical flaws then please let me know.

jdrw
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Posted 01/21/08 - 01:37 PM:	#14
I came across this yesterday and thought of this thread. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/h9.htm#hypz hypostasization The variety of reification that results from supposing that whatever can be named or conceived abstractly must actually exist. When (in Through the Looking Glass) his Messenger declares "I'm sure nobody walks much faster than I do," the White King hypostasizes "Nobody" by responding that "He can't do that, or else he'd have been here first." Such philosophers as Plato, Hegel, and Heidegger are sometimes accused of similar flights of ontological whimsy. Cheers. jd
OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

HeWhoKnowsNothing
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Posted 01/31/08 - 08:21 AM:	#15
eternally_missed wrote: Ok so i've been thinking about the subject, if nothing exists or not. Basically, lets just say that a scientist has come to the conclusion that he detected nothing. He obviously detected something, since he had a sense that SOMETHING was there. I personally think nothing is really something. And the reason why we say its "nothing" is because on our plane of existence, meaning life, it appears to be nothing because it's space occupied by a different type of existence that we are incapable of knowing in anyway... i really don't know.. Nothing does not exist in the strictest sense. Nothing means the absence of something. If a scientist comes to the conclusion that they have detected nothing, this means that what he detected is a distinct lack of interaction. In other words, he detected something from which he could infer there was nothing. Do not assume that in science you have to detect something directly to conclude it exists.
I know only one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

natureculturenothing
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Posted 01/31/08 - 01:17 PM:	#16
How can you decide if there is something or nothing by looking at the evidence? I am nothing, to which a great many things seem to happen. I sometimes think I am something, but then I stop thinking. Why does nothing feel good? It doesn't - the body feels good when I am not interfering with it.

johncee1945
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Posted 01/31/08 - 08:00 PM:	#17
Just as there is matter in the universe there is also nothing, such as in a vaccumm. But it is contradictory isn't it?

HeWhoKnowsNothing
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Posted 01/31/08 - 08:13 PM:	#18
natureculturenothing wrote: How can you decide if there is something or nothing by looking at the evidence? I am nothing, to which a great many things seem to happen. I sometimes think I am something, but then I stop thinking. Why does nothing feel good? It doesn't - the body feels good when I am not interfering with it. I am very confused with your statements. If you wish to detect if there is any type of matter or energy inside a certain sealed container you can perform any number of tests on that container including; measuring the mass of the contents, taking a sample and attempting to combust it for spectral analysis, or even seeing how it reacts to being ionized etc. If the contents of the container does not ionize, combust, has no mass and just generally reacts to nothing, you can deduce that there is nothing within the container. Your statements about feelings are irrelevant. Your body is a complex biological machine, and allowing it to function properly is something your body rewards with a pleasurable emotion. It has nothing to do with the nature of existance and non-existance. You can debate whether we actually exist or if we are truly nothing. But within my definition of the universe, mass and energy are both something, and as we are beings of mass and energy; thus we are made up of something.
I know only one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

rabeldin
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Posted 02/01/08 - 05:30 AM:	#19
...but an idea has to have conceptual substance or meaning to it... I find this assertion unconvincing. Can you provide an argument for it? And by the way what is "conceptual substance"?
Leave no assumption unquestioned.

Siberian Husky
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Posted 02/06/08 - 04:34 PM: Subject: Nothingness	#20
I love myself a paradox, the existence of nothingness is probably one my favorites. Scientifically, nothingness is merely an intellectual property; it is an idea we use to try and understand an absence or lack of something--specific or nonspecific. We all understand some form of nothingness, the concept does not escape us on a basic level, even a child understand absence. It is when we examine nothingness that we discover its elusiveness and complexity. This is due to the need to capture something in order to examine it; nothingness, being an intellectual property, is difficult to examine beyond its confines due to it being a tool of contrast for interpreting "something." For example, in order to understand the notion of myself existing, others around me existing, and objects within my immediate vicinity existing, it is imperative for myself as the thinker to understand the concept of nothingness...kind of like a required fundamental that is inherently unacknowledged. On a level beyond human interpretation, I can not say that nothingness exists. I believe nothingness to be entirely intellectually manufactured for the sole purpose of dealing with existence. It is a very reliable tool for understanding the world and provides a function in anchoring thought as a prerequisite to predictability. The problem, from a philosophically scientific standpoint, of proving the existing of nothingness is the fact that proving nothing requires a self defeating form of logic. The idea of nothingness requires no proof, for it is universally understood; it can be argued that even primordial creatures (non-hunam)lacking rational thought exercise their interpretation of nothingness on a basic degree of acknowledging absence. Life requires the idea of nothingness, and this is where I believe nothingness manifests itself from. When speaking of nothingness from a physical science perspective, one may argue that the evidence of dark matter and dark energy contribute to proof of nothingness existing. It is believed than massless matter exists and plays a role in the suspension and expansion of the universe. Dark energy and dark matter, regardless of being entities lacking identifiable properties like subatomic units or conventionally measurable properties like heat, exist, therefore, they can not (by way of logic alone) be classified as forms of nothingness.
"Woof Woof"- My Dog, the greatest philosopher of our times.

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