What would constitute "nothing"?

[j6p]

No thing...nothing.
It should be the lack of something but what would that something be? My guess would be that "something" is energy in one form or another.

[juju]

Hi,

Absolute nothing implies the total absence of perceptions and perceiver.

juju

[selfAdjoint]

There are long, long threads on nothing, what it really is, whether it is really "something", and on and on. They all go nowhere. Save the bandwidth and please give this one up.

[j6p]

Maybe there are long threads on the subject because no one looked it straight in the eye for what it is? I'll stick to my definition of nothing and that would be: A total lack of energy. No energy present in any way shape or form...none...zero...zilch...nodda. No energy present.
Now if I haven't made myself clear on my position then I can see why there were looooong threads on the subject without resolve.

[DaVinci]

Well... nothing could be lack of anything else. But then you have empty space and THAT is something. Of course, if there was no one to percieve it, then it would be nothing. That was always my argument to the 'If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?' question. No, it doesn't. But then again, if there was nothing there to percieve the sound waves then there couldnt be a tree there so it is a BS question. :biggrin:

You could always define nothing based off of relations. Meaning, look in my wallet. What is in there? Nothing. Well, there is lint.... but in regards to money, there is nothing in there. Everything else in the wallet is taken as if it were not there as you are not specifically dealing with it.

Then you have the 'I ain't saying nothing!' routine... oops... too late.

Yes. this post was an attempt at humor but the points I do stand by. Thread looked like it was about to go down the tubes. :bugeye:

[Drayakir]

I just hurt my brain when I try to imagine it. THough the best idea I have is a colorless (no black, white, gray- the colors people think when they think "colorless"), no energy (no vacuum energy), no space (no dimensions), no matter, no vaccum. Something that just is... nothing.

[j6p]

The way I was looking at it was that nothing would be the normal state of things. I would say that there has to be nothing before there is something. Some credible scientises talk of vacuum fluctuations causing stuff to materialize from nothing but I have to ask, "What fluctuates? What would cause this nothing to fluctuate?"
Here's an excerpt from an article I was reading that kinda fits in with this discussion:

Where did all the matter and radiation in the universe come from in the first place? Recent intriguing theoretical research by physicists such as Steven Weinberg of Harvard and Ya. B. Zel'dovich in Moscow suggest that the universe began as a perfect vacuum and that all the particles of the material world were created from the expansion of space...

[juju]

Hi,

Nothing in a mathematical sense is the 'empty set'. It contains no elements by which to recognize or define it.

Also, this 'empty set' is a proper subset of all other sets. In this way "nothing" exists everywhere.

It is possible to get into a certain meditative, focused state, where in one can perceive the nothingness directly.

In this state, one first oscillates between the objective percption of absolutely nothing and a state of non-perception. The idea is to ride the edge of nothingness for as long as you can.

Juju

[j6p]

I think we are talking about two different kinds of empty. The one you are referring to is of the mind and the one I'm talking about is physical. But the empty mind nothingness could be that emptiness that is experienced when the one hemisphere of the brain takes over and we create. If you take a simple drawing or picture and turn it upside down on a table then draw what you see you will enter the empty head realm. There are other activities that bring us to that state but this is the easiest one that I can think of. Trouble is you won't know you are there. When you come out of it you will know you were there, but not while you are there.
Oooouuuu....I'm feelin all Zen now...lol.

[Drayakir]

Really? Well, what if you cannot draw it? Where did you get this info anyway?

[j6p]

The information I submit came from a reliable source but the most reliable source I've found is "it works" --- Question: Have you tried it?

[selfAdjoint]

Copying a picture upside down? Sure I have. It's a basic technique for training artists, to get you to see shapes as they are instead of how your inbuilt predjudices want to see them. But I never got any empty-head state out of it.

[j6p]

Hi selfAdjoint, I understand. I guess it's one of those things that isn't the same for all of us. What I can tell you is that when I paint I begin by being aware of my pallet my brushed the canvass the colors and just about everything around me. But as I progress into a work I loose myself in it. I enter a sort of state that I am not aware of until I exit it. When I'm there I'm not aware of anything around me and for all intents and purposes I am not thinking of anything.
To Drayakir: Here you go, I looked this up for you. Try it you may like it.
http://www.frog-prince.com/drawing.on.right.side.html

[Corwin]

i think its really simple; nothing does not exist. the fact that there is a word for what is not is somewhat deceptive because that seems to imply that it exists, dont try to assign anything to it. think of it like this: if there are two universes that separated by nothing, then the position of one realative to the other in space and time is not a parameter; thats not the same as saying that we don't know the realative position, its kind of like asking for the spatial distance between now and 1961.

[selfAdjoint]

Just to inspire a little head scratching, here is a formulation from Hegel's Logic. Pure Being is transformed into Nothingness.

A book on Hegel I have (sorry, I can't recall the title and I'm away from home) explains it this way: Every finite Being is completely defined by its properties, but Pure Being, just because it is completely general, has no properties. Thus when you think of pure Being you are inevitably led to think of an absence, a nothingness. Since thinking is being for Hegel, this leads to his famous transformation law, which so scandalized Kierkegard and Marx.

[Gil Fuller]

Philosophers who combine two words that have real meaning into a term that has no real meaning tend to produce a significant amount of confusion. For example, 'pure' and 'being' both have real meanings, but Pureness has nothing to do with Being. Something either exists or it does not. Things impure have just as much Being as things pure. If one means 'Pure Being' as thought, then one should say so. If one means Pure Being as 'nothing', say so. (If one is writing in German, hopefully the translation to English is accurate.) Precision of words and ideas is critical for proper philosophising. Making up terms such as 'Pure Being' or 'The Absolute' without carefully deliniating definintions that have real meaning is counterproductive to rational thought.

This,of course, is just a laypersons opinion. I am wondering if anyone else agrees?

[cozzmikjoker]

Philosophers who combine two words that have real meaning into a term that has no real meaning tend to produce a significant amount of confusion. For example, 'pure' and 'being' both have real meanings, but Pureness has nothing to do with Being. Something either exists or it does not. Things impure have just as much Being as things pure. If one means 'Pure Being' as thought, then one should say so. If one means Pure Being as 'nothing', say so. (If one is writing in German, hopefully the translation to English is accurate.) Precision of words and ideas is critical for proper philosophising. Making up terms such as 'Pure Being' or 'The Absolute' without carefully deliniating definintions that have real meaning is counterproductive to rational thought.

This,of course, is just a laypersons opinion. I am wondering if anyone else agrees?


Makes sense to me.

[cozzmikjoker]

No thing...nothing.
It should be the lack of something but what would that something be? My guess would be that "something" is energy in one form or another.


I suppose one would have to research back to the point at which this word first came into use.
Going back to however many years ago that was, it's not likely that a necessary reference for the lack of energy was the reason for the creation of this word.
Rather, it was most likely necessary to describe the absence of specific items in a given space or spaces)

The uses:

1 (relatively non-specific use) to describe what seemed to be empty space as in "there is nothing in this room" (the "thing" referred to could be anything 3 dimensional in solid or liquid form and in rarer instances, gaseous form...like steam from water boiling on a stove)

or

2 (specific use) to describe the absence of a specific thing as in "there is nothing in the refridgerator" (the "thing" specifically being referred to would be food, of course)


Currently, however, it could be said that this word has been adapted to encompass anything that we recognize as existing or even theoretically existing.... In other words, if there is "nothing" in a vacuum (before the discovery of virtual particles), it meant that there was nothing that we could recognize or measure in that space.

3 In current terms (science mostly), I would say the definition of "nothing" (if there's a specific place being refererred to as the location of this "nothing"), has evolved to mean "there's probably something there we just can't measure it yet, so in the meantime we'll call it 'nothing'".

Going back to #2 (specific use), however, if you are using the word in a comparitive sense... for instance, you are saying that there are no planets in the Andromeda galaxy (i.e. there is "nothing" there) that's a different use for the word "nothing".


In a nutshell, # 1 and #2 most likely describe the origin of use for this word.
#3 describes current use in a scientific setting.

[cozzmikjoker]

Of course, if there was no one to percieve it, then it would be nothing. That was always my argument to the 'If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?' question. No, it doesn't. But then again, if there was nothing there to percieve the sound waves then there couldnt be a tree there so it is a BS question. :biggrin:


Well, your first sentence and the second sentence are related but not necessarily interdependent. The first sentence deals with a Schrodinger's Cat type of issue and that experiment actually refers to quantum stuff (whether it's the view point of a quantum particle concerning the quantum world or the viewpoint of the quantum particle in reference to the 3 world, it's definitely not a 3d being's viewpoint of the 3d world and so the applications are limited, IMO)
Can you tell that I'm not a big fan of the many worlds theory? :)
In the 3d sense, the absence of a perceiver does not necessarily prove that something does not exist.
Look at it logically....Are we to believe that the path we walk on or the house we live in somehow recreates itself every time we are in contact with it or are viewing it? (remember I'm speaking in 3d terms, not quantum terms) To claim this on a 3d level would be throwing common sense out the door, so to speak.
:-D

As for the second statement about the tree falling in the woods, there is a monkey wrench involved.
To most people, what constitutes "sound" is the level at which a human or an animal ear can hear it. However, you have to have the proper definition of "sound" in order to determine the answer to the question.
If the strict definition of sound is that it does not occur until the waves actually hit a mechanism in an ear (any ear) that convert it into sound, then obviously the answer to the question is "no".
And there's even a hitch to this one! If you leave a recorder going, that's not an "ear" but if you take the recorder and your ear listens to it, then that tree falling in the forest has indirectly made a sound!

Here's another possible monkey wrench..........
If the definition of sound is:
any wave that occurs in the range of hearing by human or animal ear... then you have problems. Notice it didn't say that an animal or human need be present, it just said that a wave (commonly recognized as being in the range of their hearing) had to occur somewhere.
(It's semantics, I know, but those trick questions many times involve semantics or a lack of clarity in the way that they are stated.)
So if the definition of 'sound' actually refers to the wave itself and not to the product of the wave hitting an ear, then the answer to that question, coupled with what I said in the first few sentences of this post, could possibly give you a "yes" answer to the old tree in the woods dilemna.
Scary, isn't it?

[j6p]

cozzmikjoker, Thanks for your post. I like #3. That definition of what I meant by "nothing" fits as close as I can figure.
The specific setting that I was referring to was, for a lack of a better description, pre big bang.
I understand that on this forum type format it's sometimes not easy to get a thought down the way we want to. At least for me that seems to be the case. I see now that if someone puts something as simple as - "what's a hydrogen atom made up of?" the answers could run all over the place so I guess it would be the job of the poster to properly frame the original question. Then again maybe it's not as easy as it sounds, to frame the question properly...that is. It took many posts to get a definite answer.
"3 In current terms (science mostly), I would say the definition of "nothing" (if there's a specific place being referred to as the location of this "nothing"), has evolved to mean "there's probably something there we just can't measure it yet, so in the meantime we'll call it 'nothing'".That sounds a lot like something I told somebody that asked my opinion as to what I think dark matter was. I told them, "If I walk into an unlit room and trip over something - that would be dark matter." It's matter that we don't have the ability to see at the present time but it doesn't mean that it isn't there. So I would have to say that in the context that I meant nothing, there was something there but we haven't acquired the ability to measure it yet.

[cozzmikjoker]

I understand that on this forum type format it's sometimes not easy to get a thought down the way we want to. At least for me that seems to be the case. I see now that if someone puts something as simple as - "what's a hydrogen atom made up of?" the answers could run all over the place so I guess it would be the job of the poster to properly frame the original question. Then again maybe it's not as easy as it sounds, to frame the question properly...that is. It took many posts to get a definite answer.

It's NEVER as easy as it sounds to frame a question (or even an answer) properly. LOL, we may all speak the same language (english or whatever) but stating our thoughts lucidly (much less concisely) and in a manner that will appeal to the varying thought processes of different people is quite a challenge.
It can help to give as many details as possible as well as reading and
re-reading your post to double-check the way the message comes across.
This is a teaching gift (or rather, it's supposed to be..not all teachers have it or care to put the effort into attaining it).
I've always envied Dr. Kaku's ability to articulate and break the complexity of physics down so simply...even though the details he gives aren't always exhaustive enough to answer every question that will then come up.

Maybe this part is a little off-topic but this is what I do once a year..yes, the yearly chain-yanking of our professor for not visiting his forum more often. :D
Five years ago, I wrote him a long email (of course this was before his website contained an actual forum, which now has millions of hits and it's now impossible for him to ever answer any of his emails). In that email, I asked questions on physics subjects and you know what he wrote back? That "I needed to summarize my email (which was practically 3 pages, mind you) down to 1 paragraph"! Yep, he's a physics professor alright! :D

In that same email, when I inquired about him getting a forum for his website (thinking he could then pop in and post his answers to a question or two at his leisure), he replied that he'd had several offers to jazz up the website. So now you see that he took them up on it but yet he still doesn't show up much, lol! (no amount of cage-rattling can get him here, either) :-D

On the issue of pre-bang, I find it hard to believe that stuff can pop out of nothing. At least the multiverse theory gives a possibility how that can happen by showing a "Pre-Cause".
But then it makes you wonder how the first multiverse got started.....

On dark matter, yes, I understand you. They know something's there,
just not exactly what. That would definitely be a "something" and not a "nothing", though it would appear that nothing was there.
I agree with the flatlander analogy in this one aspect: it's a very good analogy of how limited our perception is (I however do not take the illustration literally as it applies to actual dimensions).
When we look at at anything, we think we are seeing it all but then we
find there's always more than meets the eye.
Look at the human body...100 years ago, they thought they knew everything about it. When you look at the human body, you think you see everything but now we know there is a whole other "dimension" to it. DNA strands, electrical impulses, etc and so on. It seems we know only a slice of the "how" to things not their holistic "how" and we definitely don't know the "why" to them. I guess the "why" is more philosophical though......
It just seems that we will forever go on explaining how "this affects that" and this causes this and that over there, which then leads to this or that happening". It never seems truly holistic. Hate to sound so pessimistic but even strings, it seems, still don't explain it all. Where did strings come from?
Okay, gee wiz this is depressing.
And anyway, that ought to about do it for my opinions on "nothing". :D
I have to find a space somewhere on the forum to talk about the guy who invented the gizmo that sees thru walls.