Does nothingness exist?

Question

bonus question: are we nothing?

Answer 1

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT "THE NOTHING" FROM THE NEVER ENDING STORY?

Answer 2

Absolute nothingness is impossible in the physical world, though as concept it is possible. When we say nothing is better than X; we mean that X is the best; there is no other thing that could be better than that. Concept of Nirvana is Buddhism is attainment of absolute nothingness. In Yoga the supreme form of meditation is having the mind without thought - is about achieving nothingness.

As far as I am concerned Nothing is better than nonsense!

Answer to Bonus Qustion:
On scale of universe we are next to nothing, our acts make us something.

Answer 3

It depends on how you interpret nothingness. If you interpret it to be the lack of all things, then nothingness can exist, but only through one's perceptions. I perceive that I think, I exist, and I know. I'm not nothing therefore nothingness does not exist for me. However, a person who feels as though their thoughts, existence, and knowledge count for nothing and have no greater sense of purpose, chances are they would call themselve nothing surrounded by millions of nothing in a world full of nothingness. Their perception tells them that nothingness does exist.

Answer 4

Yes there is nothing.

Obviously that was meant as an illustration of contradiction. Your question in itself is a contradiction. To ask if there is nothing supposes that there is a being or state capable of comprehending or responding to such a concept. That assumption precludes the absense of everything, a reasonable start for a definition of nothingness.

Your bonus question is more challenging (as it should be). If I seperate my response from the first question given its inherint contradictions, I would have to say that we are all that there is. Reality or matter is only defined by the ability to observe it. Hence whatever there is to observe is within the context of our being. Thus is really is irrelivent if we are nothing or something. We simple are what we observe and that everything, including nothing.

Answer 5

"arewethereyet" makes a good point relative to the physics of what we loosely call "nothing" or the "vacuum of space." Right now science attributes characteristics to the vacuum, and it may aactually come in various flavors. There is even one ("negative vacuum") associated with the Big Bang itself.

So on the physical side it's hard to come up with something that meets the philosophical (or maybe psychological) requirements of "nothingness."

I'm not sure why you ask if we are nothing. We may be accidental, purposeless and exceedingly insignificant in terms of the universe. (I believe we are all these.) But that doesn't translate as "nothing" - unless you wanted us to be so much more that for you this paltry result is tantamount to "nothing."

Answer 6

Have you ever watched that movie "What The Bleep Do We Know?" It's a really kewl look at physics, and one of their little segments had to do with what you are talking about.

Basically, they said that matter is mostly made of nothing lol. There are little bits of stuff that pop in and out of existence (they don't know where they go) and there is just a bit of the actual matter, then there is nothingness, just empty space.

Interesting eh?

Answer 7

Sure, The word is something, therefore existing....Does the meaning of the word(nothingness) exist? It's paradoxical.
By definition it's flawed. By saying that Nothingness exist it become not nothingness but something. Therefore not nothingness.

Answer 8

Absolute Nothingness is what the regular nothingness of empty space is expanding into. We're something, in that we're made up of Carbon and Oxygen and Iron and other elements. Those elements are made up of a lot of nothing, however, with little bits of something mixed in. So we're mostly nothing.

Answer 9

Nothingness cannot exist. In order for anything to exist it must be something. That's like asking does non-existence exist.

If you want to explain those empty spaces between electrons and the vacuum of space you cannot call them nothing, they would have to be referred to as voids.


Ok. I'll play.

If nothing existed then nothing would exist and we would not exist either making us nothing.

Answer 10

Yes it does. In the same way Zero exists. Are we nothing? Would nothing be sitting on the internet waisting time to ask and answer that question?

Answer 11

Decartes already answered your "are we nothing question" when he imagined that his life might be a dream created by a demonic force. "I think therefore I am" was his solution to this problem. See the movie The Matrix if you want an updated version of this philosophy. No. We are not nothing.