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Questions tagged [nothing]

Use this tag for questions about the philosophical concept of nothing or nothingness.

27 questions
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5 answers

What is nothing?

In Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe From Nothing he portrays "nothing" as a physical state. He says that nothing is found by removing all of what we know to be things (particles, electrons etc). I've found that in watching his debates a common…
William Perkins
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Why is something coming from nothing seen as less intuitive than something existing eternally?

Many people often use the infinite regress argument of causality to posit an entity that always existed or was eternal. In their eyes, it escapes the problem. But how does it escape the problem? If it exists within time, and this entity is making…
seeker
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How to denote the idea of nothingness in formal terms?

I was thinking about the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" , and have read about some theories that existence is the case because non-existence is logically impossible So, I devised a logical proof that shows nothingness is…
SmootQ
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Understanding "Emptiness"

One of the many sincere efforts by mankind has been to try to understand "Emptiness" sometimes by scientific methods, sometimes by religious doctrines. Recently, we are trying to investigate "Quantam Vaccum" and all to propose new theories of the…
Soumyadip Sarkar
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Is dying in a simulation ever sufficient for death, and if not does that make death inconceivable?

Is dying in a simulation -- any simulation at all -- ever physically sufficient to die at that instant outside it? I mean a simulation like in the film the Matrix, or in a dream, one that kills your real body at the same instant that you seem to…
user44289
5
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1 answer

Some questions about Scientific American's article on nothingness

A Scientific American article I was reading (I couldn't find it online) has a one-page discussion about nothingness. Some of the discussion points seem a little questionable to me, and I'd like to ask people more knowledgeable about some of…
APCoding
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Speaking what is not = speaking about non-being?

In Plato's The Sophist, a stranger from Elea argues with Theaetetus, a young friend of Socrates, about the definition of "sophist". They come to the conclusion that the sophist imitates the wise man. He gives the appearance of knowledge while…
viuser
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What is "Nothing"?

What is "nothing" and how can a Universe be entirely created out of "nothing"? The moment we give "nothing" a description or definition, it becomes something. The absolute state of nothingness, by its own "definition", does not exist and cannot…
NamesLano
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Can nominalists believe in their own death?

Can nominalists believe in their own death? You often hear people talk about death as nothing-ness, which suggests a universal nothing. And nominalists say that universals do not exist. Just trying to figure out why I often seem so averse to…
luke
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Is nothing an entity?

An entity cannot not be and the definition of nothing is not being. Can we include "nothing" among the abstract entities or should we differentiate nuances of nothing, eg. the mathematical nothing, the idea of nothing and nothing itself? My main…
user27426
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Can something sensible be said about a world of complete nothingness?

One thought that keeps me up at night is when I start to think about the world "before" the universe existed and "beyond" the universe itself. I know that it doesn't really make sense to speak about "before time" and "beyond space" but still... I…
vonjd
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What reasoning does Melissus or Parmenides give against the existence of "empty" or "the void"?

Melissus reaffirms Parmenides by explaining how there cannot be many without the existence of that which is empty, and since that which is empty is nothing, and nothing can't exist, thus there cannot be many. It seems to me that they associate…
personjerry
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How to explain nothingness in Consciousness theory of Tegmark

The hypothesis was first put forward in 2014 by cosmologist and theoretical physicist Max Tegmark from MIT, who proposed that there's a state of matter - just like a solid, liquid, or gas - in which atoms are arranged to process information and give…
user47436
2
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Do questions of Infinite regress, uncased cause and nothingness just point to our limits?

A lot of debates and conversations with theists seem to end up with the "ultimate" questions where the questions themselves seem to me to be conceptual/linguistic/psychological dead ends. Infinite regress vs uncaused cause - the two sweethearts and…
MGm
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Does defining nothing make it something?

I originally thought of 0 for this question. 0 is used to represent nothing withing mathematics. However, I thought that by defining nothing as 0 which (at some level is something) does it no longer make nothing nothing and rather nothing something?…
Joshua Killen
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