What is "nothing"

...get back to it I was adding stuff as usual...knock yourself out !

Yea I do that too

1 - I think you are the one needing to explain how is it that Nothingness can exist......

I didn’t assert that it can exist. Certainly it’s doubtful it can be “found” anywhere in the Universe. I only maintain that it’s perfectly rational and easily more acceptable to suppose a state of nothingness; no matter, no space, nothing

2 - Justifying claim X through X is a tautology not an explanation !

Wasn’t aware I did that. You might provide an example

3 - Equally you would have to explain how is it that you assert that nothingness requires no justification if you are yet to provide an example of absolute nothingness...

I may have given the wrong impression. I don’t mean to say nothingness requires no justification, only positing the state. I guess I’m not alone because some perfectly serious cosmologists maintain that the Universe popped into existence out of nothing

at the very least you ought to say here I cannot justify it but here it is !

It seems you’re asking me to point to something that probably doesn’t exist

Where is it ?

Not sure it’s anywhere

What is it ?

Nothing

You are pointing into a sort of "meta X" based on a gut feeling aren't you ?

Sort of

...that is, for every thing that I can enumerate ad infinity I can think of a corresponding negative function.

I’m not sure it’s necessary but I guess the opposite of nothing is something

It could not do so because it would simply be expanding the universe

agreed...good reply to Cyr !

You can't maintain any claim towards something you can't describe what it is...

You often reply nothing is nothing...

You didn't posit a state but you claim to have been referring to one...

Are you saying that nothing doesn't exist ?

I ask you to point to nothing !

...its a word...and meaningless so far...

yeah you are guessing !...

If the Universe is finite, there’s nothing outside it. There is no outside

If the Universe is infinite then the q isn’t applicable

I think we’re in a kind of semantic quandary. Perhaps subconsciously you’re thinking of nothingness, a sort of void, outside the Universe. But there simply isn’t an outside

Quote:

yeah you are guessing !...

Yes I guess it’s largely guesswork, anything like this being hard to discuss for semantic reason and depending largely on intuition or as you say, “gut feeling”

But intuition is immensely valuable. Without it we’d still be living in caves and batting each other with wooden clubs

I hate to be such a party pooper, but the entire language of cosmology is, as far as I'm concerned, an exercise in psychosemantics . Finite and infinte in particular cannot, as I sense it, describe the grandest structure of Reality--nor can "grandest structure."
I also wonder to what extent astrophysics is served by mathematics, the so-called language of nature.

the entire language of cosmology is, as far as I'm concerned, an exercise in psychosemantics

Good thing I have no investment in my model. Thanks.

I see you understand the logical errors behind that question.

I brought it up because I think there are similar errors behind the idea of absolute nothingness. It is like imagining fire without something that burns.

later, intuition, that's the way it is in my book, "It Started With Pain."

I hate to be such a party pooper,

but the entire language of cosmology is as far as I'm concerned an exercise in psychosemantics.

Finite and infinte in particular cannot, as I sense it, describe the grandest structure of Reality—

nor can "grandest structure.”

I also wonder to what extent astrophysics is served by mathematics, the so-called language of nature.

the facts themselves. It involves us using them to the best of our ability to understand how they can be fitted together.