What is Nothing vs Absolutely Nothing?

  • Thread starter Erck
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In summary, according to this theorist, the concept of nothing does not exist. Matter has no tensile strength to speak of and the concept of space does not exist within the bounds of "nothing".
  • #36
There are two kinds of nothing - That which exist and that which does not, or defined verses undefined nothing. We happen to be in the defined nothing for obvious reasons. This defined nothing is simply the geometric embodiment of an undefined nothing. It is conceptual in nature - Meaning our universe is not a physical entity.

Matter and space are essentially indentical. The difference between the two is localization of defined nothings (matter), verses extentions of those localizations (space). Matter will act upon you in a greater sense, because this is where the foci of these definitions of nothing are. Space being the extention of the foci likely only acts upon you in a gravitational sense. You can't see space, but you can feel it.

I might further add that photons are the fundamental entity. They can't be examined beyond what they act upon. This is to be expected because nothing is the constituent they are made of.

Just to repeat - Existence is entirely conceptual. We explain how it all works using what we term as physical laws, although they should be termed conceptual laws. Non-existence is the absolute requirement by which Existence is defined.
 
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  • #37
If I understand you correctly... there is much I agreee with.

The defined nothing being a geometric embodiment of an undefined nothng... I wonder about though.

I wonder how an undefined nothing can have a role to play, even passively... unless of course I misunderstand your meaning of "undefined."
 
  • #38
Erck said:
If I understand you correctly... there is much I agreee with.

The defined nothing being a geometric embodiment of an undefined nothng... I wonder about though.

I wonder how an undefined nothing can have a role to play, even passively... unless of course I misunderstand your meaning of "undefined."
I'm making an initial assumption that the universe came from nothing, or rather in nothing. If you wipe the slate clean - You are forced to conceptualize it. This can't be done in one stroke being that it is all encompassing. In fact it can't be done ever, but we are here. Therefore it is defined through discrete entities wherein an infinity of them are possible. This must be an ongoing process. First there is one entity, then two, then three, and so on till hell freezes over. So, in effect - The universe is larger in quantity today than it was yesterday.

The undefined nothing plays a role only in that it must be defined. It can not exist in relation to us other than to infer the existence of it's non-existence.
 
  • #39
that is a really confusing way of saying, for every nothing there is a something, and for every something there was a nothing it came from ...
 
  • #40
JesseBonin said:
that is a really confusing way of saying, for every nothing there is a something, and for every something there was a nothing it came from ...
Not sure I would word it exactly that way, but your sentence would have to be acceptable. It can be confusing in that we are use to thinking in a physical sense, where something from nothing is unattainable.
 
  • #41
JesseBonin said:
that is a really confusing way of saying, for every nothing there is a something, and for every something there was a nothing it came from ...

The universe came from the leftovers of the last universe. The only thing that comes from nothing is nothing.

It is the same as energy only it is anti-energy. Nothing can neither be created nor destroyed.

Look at it this way:

If every action creates an equal and opposite reaction then see this:

Something = action// Nothing = equal and opposite reaction.

and respectively:

Nothing = action// Something = equal and opposite reaction

You might not consider nothing to be an action or condition or anything but, as i have explained, for the sake of discussion, "nothing" is "something" and there for as a condition, a state and a "probability" it is an action within the confines of this universe.
 
  • #42
p-brane said:
You might not consider nothing to be an action or condition or anything but, as i have explained, for the sake of discussion, "nothing" is "something" and there for as a condition, a state and a "probability" it is an action within the confines of this universe.
Well said.

Nothing as a "no-thing" IS a player within the confines of the universe.

But there is a difference between it and that initial condition we wonder about... the "before" the universe condition... the condition of "absolute" nothing.

They are different.

That's what the idea of this thread is about... the difference.

Does anybody see the difference?
 
  • #43
Erck said:
the "before" the universe condition... the condition of "absolute" nothing.

? One will have to prove there was a "condition of absolute nothing" before the p-brane of this universe was evolved.

My hypothesis contends that there was an imbalance between "void" and matter. When "void" became the greater force than matter, thus, separating top quarks of matter to a great degree, then the resulting imbalance between "void" or "absolute nothingness" forced a "big bang" out of one of the quarks and... "voila"... new universe.

There are, in all probability, very many universes within this "void" region of ours. We can't observe them because there is "void" separating each individual universe's p-brane. (edit: spelling)
 
  • #44
That still describes a situation where there is something (matter) and no-thing (void)... which is not a condition of absolute nothing.
 
  • #45
absolute nothing is that which exists befor you and after you, all of reality, all matter and energy, all things real and imagined popped into existence when you became aware. and all things will cease to exist when you are no more..
 
  • #46
JesseBonin said:
absolute nothing is that which exists
... "exists".
Existance ... is not absolute nothing. Right?
This thread is really about semantics. Lol.

Are we talking here about no-THING (but allowing the 'potency') or even not allowing the potency?
 
  • #47
It is about semantics... but that can be taken as good or bad.

Semantics is the study of the meaning of language.

Ideas can only be clear if the language is used properly.

A clear idea might, at this level of thought, be a fact.

A fact about existence is what we are looking for.
 
  • #48
existance is not neccisarily something.. otherwise the simple nameing of a thing or non-thing would make it a thing. let us get past the word and think about the meaning, or the concept of a space in space/time where there is nothing. no thought, no mass, no anti-anything, no posative or neutral, no light or darkness. does such a place exist? (the existence of nothing is still nothing) mathimatically anything multiplied by zero is still zero.
 
  • #49
JesseBonin said:
... zero.
Tell me about zero ...
what is it ... what is it not?
 
  • #50
zero is the tool we use to describe that which we cannot describe, it encompasses all that we do not know.

again, were trying to define the un-definable and no matter how much we learn or discover there will always be that "zero" weather it is a place or a time or an idea that is un attainable. the snake that devoures itself, the origin without origin, the time befor time... the "zero" the "nothing" the "god" whatever you would like to call it.
 
  • #51
Zero is less than we give it credit for being.
 
  • #52
JesseBonin said:
absolute nothing is that which exists befor you and after you, all of reality, all matter and energy, all things real and imagined popped into existence when you became aware. and all things will cease to exist when you are no more..

I'd like to see some proof of this! There's no way to prove it. Can you come up with a way to prove your statement?


Erck.

How's the surf out there in CA!?

Zero: if zero were as less as we can't fathom, it wouldn't be a number. In some number systems zero is just a "-" or a "x" or a "knot". Its hard to work with absolute zero since

it can't be quantified.
 
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  • #53
Hi p-brane... surf, I got no stinking surf... I do however, live on a boat up a muddy canal off the SF bay.

Absolute zero is the most secretive thing there isn't.
 
  • #54
p-brane said:
I'd like to see some proof of this! There's no way to prove it. Can you come up with a way to prove your statement?

I could prove it, but i wold have to kill you 8) lol JK

I think the real question is, prove that it is anything else...
 
  • #55
here is a mind bender, can you find anything that exists that is absolute?
or better still, find anything that has no motion at all? we know that all mass has motion, so we can count out all reality, what is left?
lets combine the 2 questions, is there an abslute? and is there anything with zero motion? light, as we struggle to figure out why the speed of light is absolute we may well find it is us that is moveing and light that is perfectly still... and thus the nothing or zero we cannot find
 
  • #56
The Virtual Particles Of The Quantum Vacuum

http://www.calphysics.org/images/zpe.jpg


I could not put my finger on how to explain about nothing, which cannot exist?

useful calculational tool in physics is the ideal harmonic oscillator: a hypothetical mass on a perfect spring moving back and forth. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that such an ideal harmonic oscillator -- one small enough to be subject to quantum laws -- can never come entirely to rest, since that would be a state of exactly zero energy, which is forbidden. In this case the average minimum energy is one-half h times the frequency, hf/2.

http://www.calphysics.org/zpe.html

Nernst correctly deduced in 1916 (ref. 8) that empty space is still not completely devoid of all radiation after this is done. He predicted that the vacuum is still permanently filled withan electromagnetic field propagating at the speed of light, called the zero-pointfluctuations (sometimes called vacuum fluctuations). This was later confirmed by the full quantum field theory developed in the 1920’s and 30’s. Later, with the development of QED, it was realized that all quantum fields should contribute to the vacuum state, like virtual electrons and positron particles, for example. According to modern quantum field theory, the perfect vacuum is teeming with all kinds of activity, as all types of quantum virtual matter particles (and virtual bosons or forceparticles) from the various quantum fields, appear and disappear spontaneously. These particles are called ‘virtual’ particles because they result from quantum processes that have small energies and very short lifetimes, and are therefore undetectable.One way to look at the existence of the quantum vacuum is to consider that quantum theory forbids the absence of motion, as well as the absence of propagating fields(exchange particles).

This follows from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In QED, the quantum vacuum consists of the virtual particle pair creation/annihilation processes (for example, electron-positron pairs), and the zero-point-fluctuation (ZPF) of the electromagnetic field (virtual photons) just discussed


http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cach.../9903025+Lense-Thirring+Effect&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
 
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  • #57
JesseBonin said:
here is a mind bender, can you find anything that exists that is absolute? or better still, find anything that has no motion at all? we know that all mass has motion, so we can count out all reality, what is left?

Now you're talkin'...

The absolute IS what we are looking for.

An absolute has no motion, no mass, no position, no relatives outside of itself.
 
  • #58
here is the paradox
there is no perfect vacuum, perfect vacuum = absolute nothing.
nothing is perfectly still so the absence of such a thing is absolute?. maybe
photons, tacheons(?), ect are conjectural .. we surmise that they "can" exist but have no means of verifying it? why? If photons are absolutly still as i guess, then anything man makes or devises will be unable to detect such a thing due to the fact that all matter in this reality has motion.
what do we know? we know that light has no mass ..
we know that becouse we can manipulate light that it does exist..
the paradox, how can something without mass exist?

here is a good one, we assume atoms exist becouse we can detect motion and magnetics .. but have you ever actually seen one?
we have a telescope that can see to the far edges of the universe, but we have not one micro-scope that can see a simple atom. (this discludes electron type microscopes, they do not actually magnify a visual thing but bounce electrons off of something and record the results and i don't think i need to explain the problem in magnifying an atom with an electron)

how do we see if light actually moves or if it is absolutly still? well we could try to freeze something to absolute zero..oh wait, we can't do that either.. absolute zero is as unattainable as 188,000 miles per second. 8) i do however think that we are closer to absolute zero than we are to light speed (c). and this is why. if light is "at rest" then no matter how fast we travel light will still be at rest (might also answer one of special relativities biggest questions "why does light travel away from you at the same speed no matter how fast your frame of referance is moveing)

i digress, we are looking for "nothing" and light is at the very least "something" i simply wounder if the nothing we wish to uncover is the something we already have 8)
 
  • #59
btw - the harmonic balace thing
a great tool for learning the theory, but essentially flawed... at some point (in a perfect vacuum) a atom will find molecular balance, as the orbitals rotate against them selves, the atom will not rest, but the nucleus will, thus a value of zero .. but that's still more conjecture.
 
  • #60
We have to think "outside" the box (universe).
 
  • #61
Erck said:
We have to think "outside" the box (universe).


Sort of like telling us what a black hole looks like inside?
 
  • #62
sol2 said:
Sort of like telling us what a black hole looks like inside?
Interesting reaction.

A black hole is a microcosmic representation of the big bang.

These two conditions are as close as relativity can get, to becoming absolute.
 
  • #63
Nothing, or Nothingness, is an antinomy

Nothing, or Nothingness, is an antinomy: it negate itself as a thing though it's representation IS evidently something.
The interesting fact is that this antinomy is really outside of any language contest, so we could affirm that it is the "seed of antinomy" or, as I called it, the "Originary Antinomy".
The most interesting consequence is that "Nothingness" can be imagined as infinite oscillations between "not expression" (actually I couldn't write anything) and "expression" of itself.
The subtle difference can be noted by this formula
[tex]\rightarrow \emptyset[/tex]​
in which the lacking term on the left side of implication sign is the real, unwritable, unthinkable, nothingness. Whatever you think about that lacking is not nothingness though.
Since this infinite series of oscillations should be repeated infinite times, we could affirm that in this originary condition neither time nor space exist.
We could yet say that "space" is representative of "manifesting nothing", while "time" is representative of "number of occurrencies of this happening".
Since each occurrence of this "space" must happen at least "one time", it is natural that space and time must be strictly related between them.
Indeed, if we suppose that there is mathematical limit to which the ratio of the two series (Space/Time) converge, this limit would lead to a non breakable limit of speed in a Universe based on this ratio (say the light speed of that Universe?).
 
  • #64
Let's assume Sound in Analogy?

Erck said:
Interesting reaction.

A black hole is a microcosmic representation of the big bang.

These two conditions are as close as relativity can get, to becoming absolute.


I am responding to Palgren's post using yours.

If the basis then is "oscillations," then the distinction between the balckhole expanding and contracting raise the potential of extremes of energy gatherings, and its collapse?

Matter distinctions are raised in the ideas of such singularties, not as a infintie density, but where all is "ONE."

So in the early universe, dualism is taken out of the picture, for http://wc0.worldcrossing.com/WebX?14@139.mutQbxfLPVq.0@.1dde779c ?

Just thinking out loud

See http://hep.uchicago.edu/cdf/smaria/ms/aaas03_ms.pdf
 
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  • #65
Trying to describe nothingness, I realized the least thing that can exist is existence itself. Even if nothingness could exist on its own, nothingness would be a state of existence. Therefore the idea of creation is not creation out of nothingness but changing what exists into something else.

When we talk about Space/Time, we believe empty space plus time is the fundamental state from which everything starts. But I realized space is a more complex thing. It can’t be fundamental because there is no natural state of emptiness. The natural state of things is existence.

The next thing, creation, is to modify existence into something else. Force is applied to modify it, but because of inertia the change doesn't occur simultaneous to the force being applied. It occurs later, and that way, we have time. So a more accurate description of Space/Time is Matter/Time. Which suggests space is made of matter. (You can move backwads in space but you can't move backwards in matter. Everything is action, then reaction.)

The Higgs Field is like a space made of matter, like "molasses". He concluded the drag of particles and things through that space is what we see as their mass.

That’s very neat, but I say mass, momentum, etc exists as a natural state of matter, but there is also the drag that comes from a space made of matter when complex systems, molecules, objects move through that space. The vibrant molecule has to power itself through a space that has some drag to it.

If space is defined by particles of matter, then we have a particle of matter separated by nothingness and another particle of matter. When basic particles move, they move from particle to particle. These are physical points of matter, which possesses inertia, that define space. They are exactly like our concept of non-dimensional points, but they are real things and they are not infinite. Take any box and put a certain number of points in it, like fifteen points. If you are a point, to move from point to point, you can only move in a limited number of directions. But if you are not a point, but a complex system, you move through the sea of points that have mass. There is a drag, like the Higgs Field, but the drag is not the whole reason the system seems to have mass. It is only part of the reason. The way that molecules overcome this drag is the same way gravity works.

So the condition of emptiness that we imagine all physics to operate in is wrong. It is more accurate to say we operate in a space made of matter, because matter or fullness is the most basic form of existence, not emptiness.
 
  • #66
how vast our universe ,is it limitless?
 
  • #67
JesseBonin said:
I could prove it, but i wold have to kill you 8) lol JK

Kill yourself and send postcards from your place in the anti-life explaining how all existence has become non-existent and how you are the only one existing. Rather self-centered approach, no?

There's no way to prove something does not exist when you're not observing it because you're not observing the lack of existence because you're not observing it and its not there. Its a vicious psycho, and I'm putting it to rest (lol).

Have a nice life.
 
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  • #68
John said:
Trying to describe nothingness, I realized the least thing that can exist is existence itself. Even if nothingness could exist on its own, nothingness would be a state of existence. Therefore the idea of creation is not creation out of nothingness but changing what exists into something else.

So the condition of emptiness that we imagine all physics to operate in is wrong. It is more accurate to say we operate in a space made of matter, because matter or fullness is the most basic form of existence, not emptiness.
Good stuff John.

Especially the first paragraph.

In the last paragraph the implication seems to be that we would end up with a representaion of the universe as one solid piece of matter, so to speak.
 
  • #69
anandshanbhag2003 said:
how vast our universe ,is it limitless?
This won't clarify your question completely, but the universe does have a set of limits, but they are not absolute.
 
  • #70
Erck said:
This won't clarify your question completely, but the universe does have a set of limits, but they are not absolute.
"... they are not absolute"? You have inside information ? :biggrin:
 

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