Does "nothing" and "something" really exist?

Question

Does "nothing" and "something" really exist?

I mean, everything is something.
But things can't exist without there opposite,
I mean, there can be no good without evil, no hot without cold, ect.
So if everthings somthing, including nothing. Wouldn't that make "somthing" not have an opposite makeing it so that "something" and "nothing" don't exist?
But if "something" and "nothing" don't exist, what is this text your reading made out of?

When I say nothing, I mean like a void

Answer 1

I think you are picking at the English language instead of making a philosophical argument. Does it matter if "nothing" or "something" exist? Sorry, nope.

Answer 2

You are asking the crucial meta-existential question which is not very easy to answer, but here is my best shot. When you use "something" you mean something that exists. Something=existence of X, nothing being the opposite of something would not be something else like Y it would be Not X. The X actually exists but the not X is merely a privation of X not the existence of anything else like Y. Good question, and by the way this is not merely a question of the English language it applies to all natural language and is quite relevant to philosophy of language, one of the most popular disciplines in philosophy over the last fifty years.

Answer 3

Many questions were asked in the ancient Hindu texts about
the nature of Parama Atama (infinite soul, or Almighty) and
Atma (soul). In the olden days, Gurus used to put these
questions to disciples to test their knowledge.

What is the constituent material of Almighty? All created
materials are subject to decay and annihilation, Almighty
is above the influence of decay and annihilation. He
is eternal.

Then is Almighty a void? In terms of material
characteristics, Almighty is void (Soonya).

Can this lead to the logic that Almighty is not there?
No. Almighty is there. He is consciousness, the infinite
consciousness. The Atma which is a finite piece of Almighty,
according to Advaita Vedanta - the personal consciousness.
Soul was created in the likeness of Infinite Soul.

Since Atma is only a minute piece of Almighty, is it
subjected to annihilation? No. Atma is also eternal.

Answer 4

well, the english language cant explain in short form sadly. I will just say what it means in science.E=MC2 Nothing is a thing that does not exist in one dimension, such as ours, but in another dimension, it is something, the opposite is in another dimension where it is something. In our dimension, space is a void of nothing, well, the opposite will be in the other dimension where space is made out of cheese or something, made out of matter. But here, matter is something, since our lanuage makes nothing a word to make it something it is something but not in a matter form, instead it is in waves spoken by us. Then matter has a bunch of oppisites and such to make eternity, a cycle which einstein was thinking about but I just finished it. THE END

Answer 5

languange is giberis with questions like these....notice everything goes silent when i ask...What came before there was nothing? A million thoughts whiz through your mind either scientific, religious, or even critical. These thoughs might mean nothing to someone else, and someone else might feel otherwise. The human tounges are unanimously metophors wether direct or subliminital. Nothing is in the box you could say the box is empty even, now there is some kind of gas or light in the box in you can see it is empty, just changes the use or the subject noun or verb...But really the brain is thinking, oh this is this, and that is that...someone just put names to these thoughts of dictation.

Answer 6

It is necessarily impossible that "nothing" has empirical existence. It is only a concept of consciousness. If it was an object that existed, it would be a "cognoscentum," meaning that which cognition recognizes as existant [that is the correct spelling of that word with that meaning] outside of consciousness.
It is like the concept of "zero." It is a "placeholder" in metaphysical theories.

Answer 7

In the world of duality in which we now exist, there always will be the play of opposites, ie., hot/cold, pleasure/pain, good/bad, and so on. But this world is a reflection of the real world, call it the spiritual world, in which the values are absolute. There, one plus one equals one. But there is no 'nothing' at all. There is no void in the universe. But it is a play of light/ darkness which we experience in all material worlds. The problem is how to free ourselves from the material attachments so we can exist in a real and free world. Does one have to pass the body to experience true cosmic consciousness, or can we be free here and now in this material body and mind. We are all hankering after pleasure, for that is our true nature, to be happy; but so many attachments keep us from being free. We are habitually driving in the ruts of the dualities of life and it is not easy to free oneself from the limitations that are the body and mind.

Answer 8

i believe they do exist, its just a matter of how your looking at it, in your words it might be believeble that ''something" and "nothing" are non existant, but then look at it in a simpler way, words are made to define, no-thing and some-thing are only there to describe what is there, the actual essence(for lack of a better word) of those words is that "everything" cannot define everything, if you get what im saying, and as for your opposites theory, even though there is some truth to them your examples cant really be used that way, since evil is, ironiclly, nonexistant, evil is there as a word for "lack of good" and cold is there to define " lack of heat" wen its "cold" outside they call it a drop in temp, or in heat, once you hit absolute zero you cant go farther because it is complete absence of heat. and for evil, there is absolutley no measure, you cant be 'a little evil' but you can be a little good,
same thing goes fo nothing and something, nothing is the absence of something, wich, in theory, would in fact make it its oposite.

Answer 9

It is a common misconception that nothing and something are opposites. The opposite of "something" is "not something." The opposite of "nothing" is "not nothing."

I have mentioned this in a previous answer but will say it again here as it seems to apply. There is no such thing as nothing. By defining the word nothing, you are giving it characteristics, which makes it something.

The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is a void. A void is something.

A fun side note: One definition of nothing (at webster.com) is "something that does not exist." :)~

My own fun thought in response to this definition is: "A unicorn is something that to my knowledge does not exist. Does that mean a unicorn is nothing?" (I realize it exists in our minds and in books, etc. - Just as does nothing.)

Okay, I am making myself spin in circles now... whew!

Answer 10

Defining nothing doesn't give it characteristics (as someone alluded to). Nothing is defined as the lack of any characteristics -- in particular, lack of existence. Nothing = lack of any existential characteristics. It's simply the negative of any positive existential characteristics.

If I say I have no car in my garage, I'm saying a car doesn't exist in my garage. It's a lack of existence of a car. One can understand a thing like a car not existing (in my garage). One can therefore understand non-existence. If I say nothing exists -- I'm referring to the lack of existence of any thing -- which includes all possible and actual existences.

Nothing really does mean nothing.

Answer 11

This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don