Is nothing nothing or is nothing something

GuitarMusic

We had an interesting discussion at dinner a few nights ago which was about 'nothing'.

As the title says we discussed whether or not nothing is nothing or whether nothing is something.

Our conclusions were different (reflecting the age groups present) but we all agreed that nothing is something.

Our reasons from this ranges from the fact that nothing is a word to that before the universe existed there was nothing. So the fact that we can label it nothing means that something was there.

Feel free to discuss....

tiro

There is, I think, a useful distinction to be drawn between the concept of 'nothingness' and individual tokens of nothingness. The former might be taken to exist (though it equally might be rejected by some nominalists, perhaps) whereas the latter poses more difficulties. It seems sensible to me to say that 'nothing' as a noun doesn't make much sense: nouns refer to things, whereas nothing is definitionally not-a-thing. So a token of nothing seems to require an entity which is a non-entity, and is thus contradictory. I suspect the problem turns around whether or not non-entities can stand as truthbearers for tokens of nothingness, but that is just a guess on my part.

That said, there is a different sense of 'nothing' which is more sensible. If we say 'nothing is y' we can maintain that 'there is no x for which phi'. In this sense, we can recast the problem as 'for all x, not phi', which avoids the difficulties that seem to result from the negation of existential propositions [since ¬∃x(φ(x)) is logically equivalent to ∀x(¬φ(x))].

Obviously there's a lot of complexity in this topic, and I don't pretend to be an expert, but I think that distinguishing tokens of nothing (which seem to run into the tricky problem of reference) and 'nothing' as a concept (which can simply refer to there being no x for which phi) might be helpful.

Torakx

This topic reminds me of Nietzsches "god is dead" statement and what I think is a Lacanian interpretation.
It's not a rejection of that something, which is more generally seen now as nothing.
But more like God is unconscious. God was only conscious through our belief in his existance.
The moment you consider anything, it exists through the metaphysical world. A result of neuron interactions and memory. A metaphysical hard drive.
Our physical senses, to me, represent the material world. So if a sense can feel something, then it is not nothing.
If the mind can sense something then it is not nothing.
If both cannot sense something, then it is nothing. But in writing it, I make it something again....

The word no-thing is a bit of a paradox alright.
Our understanding is on two planes of thought. the metaphysical and the physical. I don't think you can have a true answer to the original question, unless you first figure out if the physical world is a result of the metaphysical world or vice versa.
Are we in a simulation? If so, the material world might just be a result of thought.
The double slit test in physics might be applicable here too.
And probably Derridas deconstruction methods.

To answer your question plainly, I would say yes.

Peregrinus

"Nothing" is a meaningful term. But it doesn't refer to any thing. Just as "nowhere" is not a place, and doesn't have the properties of a place (e.g. location, dimensions, etc.) and "nobody" is not a person and doesn't have the properties or characteristics of a person, so "nothing" is not a thing. But that doesn't prevent us making meaningful statements about nothing.

Morbert

GuitarMusic wrote:

before the universe existed there was nothing

tiro wrote: »

¬∃x(φ(x))

This is important when talking about statements often made by physicists like Hawking or Krauss that are along the lines of "There was nothing before the universe". Consider the predicate

φ(x) = "X existed before the universe."

According to Krauss and Hawking, there is no x for which the φ(x) is true. Or equivalently (as you point out), φ(x) is false for all x.

On a related note, philosophers are less interested in predicates like φ(x) and more interested in predicates like

φ'(x) = "X is ontologically prior to the universe."