Define Nothing

Well, you asked better questions than the original poster. :-)

His main point seemed to be that it was a bad idea to define something in
terms of what it isn't. I just invented the word farklegak, which means
everything in the universe but my favorite blue shirt. Now, if you have to
write the dictionary definition, do you mention my shirt or do you start
listing everything else in the universe? As long as the complementary
definitions aren't circular (A defined as not B, and B defined as not A), it
should be fine.

Will any definition meet everyone's needs? Probably not. We're dealing
with language here, not mathematics. A man from Borneo who's never seen
anyone wear a shirt will have trouble grasping the meaning of farklegak,
just as your blind man will have difficulty with light/dark and colors. But
that doesn't make the definitions any less apt. Those people will just have
to dig a bit deeper. (Haven't you ever read a definition in the dictionary
that sent you looking up other words?)

So what is nothing? The others have presented some good answers. Is space
nothing? Nope, virtual particles are popping into and out of existance
everywhere all the time (quantum foam). What is expanding? The distance
between things...the imaginary grid we set up to measure the locations of
things.

Clear skies,
Bill



Bill, i think Roger is looking for more than this. For example,
try using your above method to describe dark and light, black
and white, or even gray to, say, a person who's been blind
since birth.

"Something" and "nothing" would be easy to define in this
respect?

Roger, the idea of "nothing" is truly a difficult concept to
grasp. Look how long it took for the world of mathematics
to finally get a zero! And even having a zero can be, well,
a bit unsettling. A case in point would be the answer to...

"When did the new millennium begin? on January 1, 2000?
or did it start on January 1, 2001? Most people celebrated
it on the former, and most of your science-types partied on
the latter date (the *real* party hounds wasted themselves
on *both* dates g)

"Nothing" is ultimately a term used to define "something."
There really isn't any such thing as "nothing." Even if you
were to whisk yourself out into intergalactic space, you
could never get so far away from galaxies that you would
not be able to see "something."

Space itself cannot be "nothing"... scientists believe that
space is expanding, that it's been expanding for billions of
years since the Big Bang. Can "nothing" expand? If space
can expand, then space must be "something," right?

Now i suppose that from time to time we can become very
acutely aware of some level of "nothing," eg, when we get
those nasty postcards from the bank charging us more of
what we don't have because our checking account is down
to "nothing."

And yet there is really only one way to get a true feel for the
definition of "nothing"... that's when, heavens forbid, you
should ever find yourself lying beneath an interstate
overpass with an empty wine bottle next to you... and
somebody's stolen your shoes. Then you might start to
get an inkling, a clue, about what "nothing" really is.

How's that Kristofferson song go? "Freedom's just
another word for *nothing* left to lose..."

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
if you have love,
you really have something,
if you give love,
you'll never have nothing.

Paine Ellsworth

Bill N. wrote,

I just invented the word farklegak, which
means everything in the universe...

Hey, how about Gacklefratz? Or Gookumpucky? Or maybe Pookumtacky..?

oc

Bill N. wrote,

I just invented the word farklegak, which
means everything in the universe...

Hey, how about Gacklefratz? Or Gookumpucky? Or maybe Pookumtacky..?

oc

Hi oc I think Ira Gerswin song can some up space. "I Got Plenty of
Nothing,and Nothing is Plenty for Me" The QM theory can create
"NOTHING" out of space,for its a fluctuation of nothing that the force
of gravity could compress into sub micro particles,and bring into our
macro realm as Hydrogen, Helium to evolve stars,and with stars life
building elements. Bert

Hi oc I think Ira Gerswin song can some up space. "I Got Plenty of
Nothing,and Nothing is Plenty for Me" The QM theory can create
"NOTHING" out of space,for its a fluctuation of nothing that the force
of gravity could compress into sub micro particles,and bring into our
macro realm as Hydrogen, Helium to evolve stars,and with stars life
building elements. Bert

In message om, Gautam
Majumdar writes
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 00:20:57 +0100, Roger Halstead wrote:

Can any one define "nothing"?

The dictionary defines it, but in reality we don't even have a concept
of nothing unless some one can come up with a definition I've not seen.


Nothing can be positively defined as "An entity whose all characteristics
are exactly zero".

But doesn't nothing have no characteristics at all? :-) "An absence of
anything" is closer.
--

Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

In message om, Gautam
Majumdar writes
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 00:20:57 +0100, Roger Halstead wrote:

Can any one define "nothing"?

The dictionary defines it, but in reality we don't even have a concept
of nothing unless some one can come up with a definition I've not seen.


Nothing can be positively defined as "An entity whose all characteristics
are exactly zero".

But doesn't nothing have no characteristics at all? :-) "An absence of
anything" is closer.
--

Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 20:19:52 +0100, Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message om, Gautam
Majumdar writes
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 00:20:57 +0100, Roger Halstead wrote:

Can any one define "nothing"?

The dictionary defines it, but in reality we don't even have a concept
of nothing unless some one can come up with a definition I've not
seen.


Nothing can be positively defined as "An entity whose all
characteristics are exactly zero".

But doesn't nothing have no characteristics at all? :-) "An absence of
anything" is closer.

That is right and is given in the dictionaries. But OP wanted a
"positive" definition. "Absence of" is a negative approach :-)

--

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 20:19:52 +0100, Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message om, Gautam
Majumdar writes
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 00:20:57 +0100, Roger Halstead wrote:

Can any one define "nothing"?

The dictionary defines it, but in reality we don't even have a concept
of nothing unless some one can come up with a definition I've not
seen.


Nothing can be positively defined as "An entity whose all
characteristics are exactly zero".

But doesn't nothing have no characteristics at all? :-) "An absence of
anything" is closer.

That is right and is given in the dictionaries. But OP wanted a
"positive" definition. "Absence of" is a negative approach :-)

--

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to

So the definition in the dictionary wasn't good enough, or what?

Nope it isn't.

Basically they define it as what it is not, not what it is and my old
college prof would never have let me get away with something like
that..

Your quest for a definition of nothing has an epistemological contradition.
Definitions refer to what is being defined.
If nothing is being defined, then there can be no definition.
Nothing has no properties for a definition to enumerate.

Nothing def: "Something that does not exist." They are defining it
in terms of itself. "Something" that does not exist. What doesn't
exist?..."Something".

We really don't have a concept for nothing as we always have to use an
incomplete definition by defining it as "something", or in terms of
itself.

The closest I've seen is Nothing "The absolute absence of everything".
Again, it's defined in terms of what it is not.

I'm looking for a real definition, or at least a better one.

No such definition exists. You might as well be asking for a description of
the elements of the empty set.
Now that I'm thinking of it, though, you might consider nothing to be a
degenerate case of something: the case from which all things have been
removed.

Space itself cannot be "nothing"... scientists believe that
space is expanding, that it's been expanding for billions of
years since the Big Bang. Can "nothing" expand? If space
can expand, then space must be "something," right?

Right. Space is gravitational potential energy; or, rather, separation and
extent is how that energy is perceived by our senses. The potential energy
fields of other forces appear to us in other ways. Texture, surfaces,
shape, color and temperature are ways in which we perceive electromagnetic
potential energy. If the nuclear forces acted on a longer-range scale, or
if we were a lot smaller, we'd probably have acquired habitual, customary
ways of interpreting their potential energy fields too.

Anyway, space isn't "nothing". It's never quite empty, either. The
uncertainty principle won't let it be.

Jerry Abbott