• silverwhisper said on Aug 21, 2007....

  you're allowing casual language to interfere with your understanding, but consider the existence of zero. originally devised as a way to signify nothing, it continues to mean exactly that: nothing. merely describing "nothing" does not impute any meaning or substance to it: it's just a description, wouldn't you say?
  
  so the utter absence of something (nothing) cannot be said to be altered by the manner in which it's labeled. :>
  
  ed

• evil_twin said on Aug 21, 2007....

  Well, the only instance of nothingness that I can think of is a black hole. It's devoid of anything and everything. But I do see what you're saying. If you give nothingness a name, doesn't that make it something? You're trying to make me think too hard and it's not even 10am here yet! :-P
  
  -evil_twin LA
  

• destinydiva said on Aug 21, 2007....

  i love this post!! and the linked one too....hmmm my brains screwed thinking bout it :-) i zvill be bak :-)
  
  Destiny xx
  

• nytquill17 said on Aug 21, 2007....

  I love it! :D
  
  Reminds me a bit of the scientific principle that the mere presence of an observer exerts a change on what is being observed.
  
  Whooo...now I've got like a brain vortex or something.
  

• the_infernal_optimist said on Aug 21, 2007....

  ed: Oh, no, it's not just semantics. This is not a new debate even from my point of limited understanding. Good point about zero - but zero represents "having none" imo, not nothingness itself. If I have zero apples, I have none - do I, then, possess nothingness in regard to apples? I see what you're saying about language vs. the concept itself, but I'm not sure you can fully separate the two. You shape something by naming it, by even understanding it, I think.
  
  e_t: Sorry about that! :-D
  
  des: I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
  
  nyt: A brain vortex? Cool! Can we get a picture of that? :-D And yes - that's very much related to what I'm talking about...and now I'm chasing that principle around in my head. :) I'm not sure you can be aware of nothingness without inherently altering it.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• ZsuzsiO said on Aug 21, 2007....

  can you think of the unthinkable?
   
  what do u do when u do nothing?
   
  I love these ones  =D
   
   
  nothing is the absense of things. Therefore it exsits, only human brain cannot process it, cause we do not use most ot it. I bet once we start using it, we'll be much smarter about this one.
   
  U know, "my people" think that when the Massaiah will come, we will all "know God". Some people thik it means, not to believe or see Him, or actually know what it is because all of our brain will be freed again, and we'll be able to see things we are unable to see right now. Just like God.
  I bet when that happens, we'll be like:
  "oh, so this is nothing!"
   
  Z

• silverwhisper said on Aug 21, 2007....

  infernal: ah, so the heisenberg principle strikes again, eh? let me think some more about this.
  
  ed

• nytquill17 said on Aug 21, 2007....

  A brain vortex is kind of like what happened when you were a kid and you first saw yourself reflected endlessly between two mirrors...at least it happened to me like that, but I was the same kid imagining universes in my bubble bath, so perhaps I am a bit...erm, hypercreative :p

• silverwhisper said on Aug 21, 2007....

  nyt!
  
  [does happy dance]

• brokenandused said on Aug 21, 2007....

  nothing=nothing
  something=not nothing =)   lol

• pickersplock said on Aug 21, 2007....

  Now by nothing, I mean nothing!  Not even molecules or atoms.  Nothing!!!!!
  The human mind finds concepts which it has never experienced, impossible to grasp.  Hence, since I have never experienced nothingness, I cannot believe it is possible.  Even if I hold out my hand, I have molecules and tiny particles not visible to the human eye in it.  So, I can never truly have nothing in my hand. 

• nytquill17 said on Aug 21, 2007....

  You're the second person who has danced at my return!
  
  Note to self: possible I have developed new "make-you-dance" superpower over vacation.  This must be further explored...muahahahaaaa!
  
  *ahem* I mean, um, hi ed.
  

• the_infernal_optimist said on Aug 21, 2007....

  Zsuz: You make some interesting points.
  
  ed: Yeah, I've been mulling it over since your comment as well - it's nice to have people who make you think without just saying "Eh, well, you're wrong" about stuff like this, because it's fascinating and I love to explore it as far as random strands of thought will go. :)
  
  nyt: You know how I feel about the double mirror thing, since it's an integral part of how I'd depict my soul. You're not that weird! (Or at least you have company... :-D) And yeah - I guess we know what superhero you'd be! Behold - it's DanceMaker Girl! :-p
  
  broken: That's certainly one way to look at it, and there's something to be said for simplicity.
  
  pickers: Good point about the mind - I do think we're sometimes (but perhaps not always) limited there by what we can fathom experiencing. Thanks for inspiring this post!
  
  ~Infernal
  

• TheNakedProfessor said on Aug 21, 2007....

  In 1979 I coined the phrase "There's No Such Thing As Nothing."
   
  Zero is a mathematical concept that we confuse with reality.
   
  Nothingness cannot exist.
   
  As our awareness grows, we find that life is everywhere you go and life's in everything you see - and in everything you can't see, too. Reality's on many levels, working many zillion ways. Everywhere is something - old and new.
   
  And everything only changes into something else.
   

• the_infernal_optimist said on Aug 21, 2007....

  TNP: Thanks for dropping by! You already know I agree, but I love the way you put that. :)
  
  ~Infernal
  

• silverwhisper said on Aug 22, 2007....

  nyt: :p
  
  infernal: honestly, i got nothing. :|
  
  ed

• rightwingwizard said on Aug 22, 2007....

  When we attempt to describe nothingness in terms of mathmatics, giving the value 0 to nothingness we fail in every instance.  For in mathmatics we can define a value less than 0.   In infernals example, should I have 5 apples and someone requires of me 7 apples once I have given to that someone the five apples I have in my posession I still owe him 2 additional apples.  The result is that I have -2 apples.  A very real and understandable concept.
   
  Can we say that there is something less than nothingness?   I think not.
   
  Nothingness is not the same as nothing.  Nothingness is an absolute, not a value, where nothing implies a value of 0
   
  As such the origional question should read:  Does nothingness exist? (as I believe was the intent of the question)
   
  In as much as we can agree that something exists (and I hope that we can agree on that point) it is impossible for nothingness to exist.
   
  It is clear therefore that while nothingness can be defined (the absense of anything) and understood, it cannot be achieved so long as something exists.
   
  Or to put it another way, in the presence of anything, nothingness cannot esist.
   
  rww

• the_infernal_optimist said on Aug 22, 2007....

  ed: Boy, do I know that feeling today! :-p
  
  rww: You're right as far as the original question - I suppose it's really nothingness I was getting at, and I'm impressed with your rationale. :)
  
  ~Infernal
  

• Danj589 said on Dec 04, 2008....

  Hmm... This one got at my mind, but I came about something. Two minutes before I saw this post I never thought of this, therefore It did not exist FOR ME. Just as the light bulb didn't exist some years back, at one point there was nothing. Just as that document that mentions you being fired three years from now it isn't into existance yet. Therefore, Nothing did exist at one point(In a material sense) I believe in the God of the Bible, and I believe He is spirit, so therefore when nothing existed there was one thing and that was God and He made the world from the things unseen (The Spirit world I believe) And just as God said He spoke and it came into being, He made the things visible from the things invisible as it says in Hebrews 11:3 (Which is proven that when Hebrew is spoken it an effect does happen, so it's very possible that spoken word created the universe)

• Unicorn said on Jan 16, 2009....

  Nothingness exists by it's way of not being.

• confusedboy said on Jan 21, 2009....

  then what is empty space?

• soulmanatees said on Jan 26, 2009....

  What is the distance between two particles if there is nothing between them? Is empty space even possible? Are there things that will never be just because they have not been thought of by a random animal on a random planet in a random galaxy in some random spot in the universe? Is there nothing on the outside of the universe that is pulling it apart just to fill the void?

• chriscoltrane said on Jun 26, 2009....

  Nothingness doesn't exist. There literally ISN'T nothingness out there. (Physically I mean) It only exists as a concept - like zero. Even empty space, for example, which we imagine it as nothingness, but has real physical properties - it can be warped and bent by gravity etc. Also, for something to exist within 'empty space', which is the closest thing imaginable to nothingness, then that thing would be existing within nothingness. How can something exist within nothing. All that exists, exists. All is 'Thingness'.

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