What is nothing? Empty space is a vacuum, or a void. Nothing is also an idea. And in math, 0 represents nothing, but it's still a number. A number is something; so is an idea. So if nothing is nothing, then is it a word?
(If anyone says that nothing is "the presence of absence", include an explanation.)
Very well, Mage. I completely forgot about nonstandard matter and energy fields. What about neutrinoes? They posses no mass, exert no light and have no energy. Would they count as nothing?
Very well, Mage. I completely forgot about nonstandard matter and energy fields. What about neutrinoes? They posses no mass, exert no light and have no energy. Would they count as nothing?
I actually have a book on those! When I can I'll copy down info on them... A more reliable source than wiki, IMO
They posses no mass, exert no light and have no energy. Would they count as nothing?
Neutrinos have mass and they possess energy. Every system in the universe possesses energy. If neutrinos possessed no energy they would grossly violate the laws of physics.
There can be no such thing as nothingness... for that to happen, an area would have to be completely void of absolutely everything, from people to subatomic particles, worse than outer space. This obviously isn't possible, but even if it did, then the term "nothing" would be irrelevant because there wouldn't be something to call it "nothing." And if we are calling it nothing, then it is something, because it is defined. Philosophy is great
And if we are calling it nothing, then it is something, because it is defined. Philosophy is great
Philosophy is great, provided you know how to use it. You're claim, then, is that if something is defined then it is "something." But this is a conflation of words with their respective concepts.
If I defined the Loch Ness monster, it is something?
What do we mean here by "something"? If by 'something' you mean an object to which we can ostensibly refer, then no, the Loch Ness monster is not something. But this can't be all there is. An idea is something, isn't it? What about the Pythagorean Theorem? Certainly that's something! Perhaps all we mean by 'something' is that there is a concept to which we can refer. Frege might put it that there is a 'sense' to the word or a 'referent'. And here is where the point about conflating the concept with the thing comes in. If we're talking about 'nothingness' we can understand the concept using set theory or formal logic. But that doesn't make the objects which define the set of nothing (of which there are none) things.
