Depends on your definition of "nothing".

Depends on your definition of "nothing".

Well, strictly speaking, it's a noun, and nouns are are basically things...

-Ngakunui

well if it's the definition "not one thing" i guess there's only one noun that is and contains nothing..

dead-space, no matter, not a thing in it, it really isn't anything itself... just a blank spot.

You just have to accept what you call "nothing" as the ultimate negative, a concept that does not exist reflexively. Do not confuse it with vacuum, which is merely the absence of matter in space. The universe -- as we understand it -- is the realm of reality; that is, matter and energy's playing field. No matter how we approach the issue, we can never leave the playing field -- if we are searching for nothing, there is no "leaving" reality which we can speak to. It's not a matter of not being able to go in any direction other than x, y, z, and forward in time; nothingness, by definition, cannot exist anywhere we can, because we and any appendage of ours must to exist -- every appendage, perhaps, except the conscious mind. We do not find nothing by building a spaceship, launching into deep space, sailing faster than light past the edge of the cosmos. We journey to the dimension of nothingness just by sitting down and thinking about the word. We acknowledge that it does not exist. It winks in and out inside of us as we realize that it does exist, but that it can't exist, and therefore does not exist, and then you realize that it does, in fact, exist, which is another problem in and of itself. Then you wonder, "What is 'real'?" Can what is real be relative? Is there a realm where our realities are figments of another mind, where our figments are the realities there? Do we create these realities with idle thought, power bestowed with brain activity? The words on a sheet of paper exist also in the mind of the one who reads them. Have you thought where physics come from, why they exist? This supercedes the physics of the universe, because physics "are." This is meta-physics. That's the whole point of them -- stuff happens when you have physics.

So much to explore, so little time.

well if it's the definition "not one thing" i guess there's only one noun that is and contains nothing..

 

dead-space, no matter, not a thing in it, it really isn't anything itself... just a blank spot.

You just have to accept what you call "nothing" as the ultimate negative, a concept that does not exist reflexively. Do not confuse it with vacuum, which is merely the absence of matter in space. The universe -- as we understand it -- is the realm of reality; that is, matter and energy's playing field. No matter how we approach the issue, we can never leave the playing field -- if we are searching for nothing, there is no "leaving" reality which we can speak to. It's not a matter of not being able to go in any direction other than x, y, z, and forward in time; nothingness, by definition, cannot exist anywhere we can, because we and any appendage of ours must to exist -- every appendage, perhaps, except the conscious mind. We do not find nothing by building a spaceship, launching into deep space, sailing faster than light past the edge of the cosmos. We journey to the dimension of nothingness just by sitting down and thinking about the word. We acknowledge that it does not exist. It winks in and out inside of us as we realize that it does exist, but that it can't exist, and therefore does not exist, and then you realize that it does, in fact, exist, which is another problem in and of itself. Then you wonder, "What is 'real'?" Can what is real be relative? Is there a realm where our realities are figments of another mind, where our figments are the realities there? Do we create these realities with idle thought, power bestowed with brain activity? The words on a sheet of paper exist also in the mind of the one who reads them. Have you thought where physics come from, why they exist? This supercedes the physics of the universe, because physics "are." This is meta-physics. That's the whole point of them -- stuff happens when you have physics.

 

So much to explore, so little time.

Like I said, on the note of "nothingness", you really can't prove it doesn't exist, because it is nothing: you can only prove things that are thought to exist as nothing, which adds more to what is considered nothing.

Nothingness is complete void: Only nothing can exist within it, only nothing can see it. That is why it is so elusive. Space itself isn't nothing: it's full of photons, radio waves, other stuff, and existence itself. So called "SuperVoids" are things, and they exist. But true, actual nothingness has not been observed, nor can it be; it's beyond what could ever possibly be observed. I mean, in real, actual nothingness, nothing exists; so there's no time, matter, or anything around it. Therefore, if nothingness did exist(or unexist, rather), then only nothing could exist within the same universe or what have you, which is impossible, because nothingness doesn't exist in the first place.

Everywhere, every time, every moment, something exists- whether it's simply space-time or a plethora of things. There are no "areas where nothing exists". A more logical question to have asked is "where is existence?" to which, can be replied to as "it's everywhere".

But if nothingness isn't anywhere, then it doesn't exist- it is nowhere, it is in no moment of time, it is nonexistent; which proves that it does indeed exist- in it's own terms.

...See where this is going?

-Ngakunui

So we agree that nothing has no physical presence. In fact, it's an absence of physical reality. It can only exist as a concept, but concepts can exist in the mind. Back to the words on paper metaphor -- someone reads the words "tall red pony" in a book. The words themselves are not a tall red pony, but the image appears in the person's mind of what they think that is. The pony in that person's mind cannot truly be said not to exist -- it doesn't have physical mass, but the fact that the person thought it up is different than if he had never thought it up at all. It's a positive as opposed to negative. The pony, however, is only a reflection of what the author of the words intended it to exist as. So you see, we can think about nothing but never have a total grasp of what it actually isn't. The only way we can really acknowledge it is to accept that the concept exists of negative reailty. I'd like to jump off on a million different tangents at this point, but I can't do that in type. Sticking to the point, what if what a reader was raised to believe that what was called a "tall red pony" was avtually what we know to be a stumpy green tractor? Does the tractor then exist instead of the pony? Well, I would say that the pony still exists. I made it sound like a concept's existence hinges upon a being's thinkinng it. But the idea of a pony still has the potential to exist and, in the timeless scheme of things, does exist. But there is also the idea of a red pony with a brown hat, with a green hat, with a white hat with a red bow, with a missing leg, with slightly longer hair, with the difference of one electron in a slightly different position from the original's in one place in it's left thigh, and that same difference in another place in it's lower neck. The possible variations of this malleable idea of what a red pony is are virtually infinite. So can anything be said not to exist? Everything that has or hasn't even been though up of seems, at some level, to exist. Everything exists; nothing does not exist.

See, that's getting somewhere. "Nothing does not exist." But what if outside this reailty in which nothing does not exist there is a realm in which nothin truly exists? Spooky.

Except, nothingness cannot be a "realm", because a realm is a place in space and time where things exist.

-Ngakunui

A realm figuratively.