Nothing is the annihilation of the positive/negative. It is when two waves of equal amplitude are out of phase by 180 degrees. What happened to the positive and negative is a very interesting question to pursue.

Whether it denotes anything (or whether it denotes nothing at all), we understand what it means, and we use it - and our understanding and usage of 'nothing' and related terms is far more fundamental than 'a square circle' (or 'the present king of france' for that matter) Nothing is all over the place -you can't just wave it away. In short: if your ontology can't cope with 'nothing', then that's a problem with your ontology.

Billy Preston resolves the question.



Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you want to be with me
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you want to be with me
I'm not tryin' to be your hero
'Cause that zero is too cold for me, Brrr
I'm not tryin' to be your highness
'Cause that minus is too low to see, yeah
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
And I'm not stuffin', believe you me
Don't you remember I told ya
I'm a soldier in the war on poverty, yeah
Yes, I am

Have a look at this title - Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife, http://a.co/6JhDf3i

goes into the history of the idea of zero. One interesting point is that at some stages, 'zero' was resisted as a heresy, it was literally un-thinkable. However as was to became clear, zero was indispensable for decimal notation, without which math couldn't even really get started.

Another interesting factlet - the symbol for zero, and one of the original names for zero, came from the hole in the middle seat of an arab dhow, a sailing dinghy which used to ply the Arabian sea.

See, the problem with nothing is that it creates more confusion than utility, when used out of formalized and logical systems.

I think about things in terms of all or nothing.
I have nothing.
There's nothing you or I can do.
I feel like I'm worth nothing.
Nothing in this world is XYZ.
Nothing interests me.
The set of 'nothing' does or does not exist.

Eh, everything creates cognitive distortions (cognition itself distorts). If you want to eradicate nothingness, you need to show how any actual, concrete meaningful usage of the term must really mean something else, something that isn't nothing. A task like this seems quixotic (and I suspect its doomed to fail from the beginning. The very idea of getting rid of something, I think, probably has nothingness nestling right in its belly.)

My personal stance on the matter is that 'nothing' should not be used in ordinary language. There are few examples in the real world where nothing can mean anything useful apart from creating distortions.

More examples,

I feel nothing about this matter/situation/state of affairs.

Nothing is bothering me.

Nothing you can say will persuade me otherwise.

When you say it 'should not' be used in ordinary language, do you mean the meanings expressed in sentences using 'nothing' should not be expressed at all, or that those sentences really mean something else, and, ideally, people should alter their usage to reflect that?

My personal stance on the matter is that 'nothing' should not be used in ordinary language. There are few examples in the real world where nothing can mean anything useful apart from creating distortions. — Question

People use the word 'nothing' in ordinary language all the time without issue. The confusion only comes about when the word is treated as as somehow problematic - as it is in the OP. It's a self-perpetuating circle that, unable to 'make sense of nothing', projects it's own confusion onto a perfectly good word and then declares 'it shouldn't be used'. This isn't 'ordinary language philosophy' - its it's exact opposite.

When you say it 'should not' be used in ordinary language, do you mean the meanings expressed in sentences using 'nothing' should not be expressed at all, or that those sentences really mean something else, and, ideally, people should alter their usage to reflect that? — csalisbury

Sure it has connotative meaning, but apart from that if we assume its actual meaning (denotative) then it has no use in that sense.

Assuming that 'actual meaning' is 'denotative' is a tall order*. What do the following denote: 'the' 'or' 'whereof' 'solemnly' 'please,' 'begone' ? etc etc.

And even if we do assume that 'actual meaning' is denotative, then we'd have to assume that connotation is 'non-actual', and explain how non-denotative sentence have 'non-actual' meaning (& how, despite their meaning being 'non-actual,' these sentences still somehow 'mean'.)

But that seems like an inauspicious path to go down.

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*(in the sense of denoting something...unless you're slipping quietly from 'denoting something' to 'literal meaning.' tho even this slippage wouldn't get you far, since 'nothing' itself has a 'literal meaning').

"There's nutn' in the fridge" just means out of food.
Like empty.
Your thoughts when unconscious, the sound of clapping with one hand, ...
The word "nothing" has plenty uses in everyday language.

0 is the cardinality of {}.

Maybe you're thinking of the topic of this SEP article?
I suppose that's more like the (missing) complement of anything and everything.
Such "nothing" isn't something that can be, isn't anything at all.
Just referent-less word (hence quoted), making a stage entry as if it were.
In that sense, a linguistic curiosity, expressing absence of anything and everything.

I'am working my way thru Plato Sophist following is one of the 'god like' Stranger from Elea conclusions:

"Stranger: When we speak of that which is not,' it seems that we do not mean something contrary to what exists but only something that is different". 257b

With respect to ontology, nothing(ness) isn't an object that exists. That doesn't mean that the term has no denotation. It denotes the absence of objects (and the absence of anything else). Nothingness can at least as a logical possibility obtain relative to objects and other existents (if you allow other existents), and we could spatio-temporally define an area of nothingness by the boundaries of objects (etc.) that circumscribe it.

Nothing is all over the place -you can't just wave it away. In short: if your ontology can't cope with 'nothing', then that's a problem with your ontology. — csalisbury

Ontologically speaking, nothing has no place. But linguistically speaking, it's a very useful concept that's hard to do without. And this may be the case when we talk about ontological matters.

But supposing this means that nothing is somehow something? That's just word play. It is a cognitive distortion.

The universe (reality, the world, existence, whatever you call it) doesn't have this problem.

We use the term like it is an empty set.

I was thinking about this the other day and recently found the answer. The only completely true form of nothing in our perception of the universe is space because there are zero particles of matter in the vacuum we call space.

'Nothing' is a generalized quantifier, a function from properties to truth values, true just in case said property is true of no individual.

I was thinking about this the other day and recently found the answer. The only completely true form of nothing in our perception of the universe is space because there are zero particles of matter in the vacuum we call space. — Fardishki

Space is something, though. It's tied in with time. Gravity warps it. And virtual particles come in and out of existence at very small scales. Also, even if a patch of space has no particles in it, it still has fields.

But most space is going to have a stray particle here or there, if not more.

Nothing is an idea, not a reality. Try to imagine a universe that doesn't exist with no one to perceive the emptiness.. No space, time, distance, or perspective. Nothing is nothing. It's a void of something, but we use symbolism like language to think it's something. It's not a philosophical question about physics, nature, or reality. More of a testament to how deceptive language can be. Not a bad question, but it's meant for a discussion between a neurologist and linguist.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

No, 'nothing' denotes nothing. Problem?

Yes, but one can speak of nothing; see, I just did.

Yes, but, nothing can be said about it. Nothing has no properties.

The negation of a state of affairs is not a state of affairs. No causative absences.

You just said something about it...it has the property of having no properties. In that it is quite unique.

The thought of an absence may be causative.

Sure thing. I don't think that that has any deep ontological implications, although it could be an interesting study in philosophy of mind.

Nothing can be said about nothing. And yet, we say something.

Language creating something from nothing. Is that how God performed ex nihilo?