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What does nothing look like?


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There is a model called Ogdens or Semantic triangle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_reference

The Phenomena or Referent of nothing was described in  Sabine's video, the concept  or reference is what is in your head when you think 'what is nothing'

In the 'War of Universals' there was debate as to what was real and what is not -  Are apples real, is the 'state' real, is 'the people' real? if so who are they? is Father Christmas real? 

Plato - a Greek philosopher who argued for the existence of objective, universal forms or ideas.

Aristotle - another Greek philosopher who rejected Plato's theory of forms and argued that universal concepts are derived from particular objects through abstraction.

In the real world does 'nothing' really exist if fields are everywhere? Does pi exist as real thing or only as a concept, if its real can you write it down?

 

 

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34 minutes ago, billhinge said:

There is a model called Ogdens or Semantic triangle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_reference

The Phenomena or Referent of nothing was described in  Sabine's video, the concept  or reference is what is in your head when you think 'what is nothing'

In the 'War of Universals' there was debate as to what was real and what is not -  Are apples real, is the 'state' real, is 'the people' real? if so who are they? is Father Christmas real? 

Plato - a Greek philosopher who argued for the existence of objective, universal forms or ideas.

Aristotle - another Greek philosopher who rejected Plato's theory of forms and argued that universal concepts are derived from particular objects through abstraction.

In the real world does 'nothing' really exist if fields are everywhere? Does pi exist as real thing or only as a concept, if its real can you write it down?

 

 

Sorry I couldn't resist this https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-electron-is-so-round-that-its-ruling-out-new-particles-20230410/

Imagine an electron as a spherical cloud of negative charge. If that ball were ever so slightly less round, it could help explain fundamental gaps in our understanding of physics, including why the universe contains something rather than nothing.

I was looking up quantum computing algorithms and found it ...

 

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I think the answer is in the question “What does nothing look like?” In order to “look like” anything requires that an object emits or reflects light to enable us to see it. Now that being the case then “nothing” cannot exist if it can be seen. The answer then becomes clear, it is impossible to see nothing therefore we cannot say what it looks like, it cannot exist if we can see it in order to make a comparison.

@andrew s made a better fist of it with his very succinctly worded explanation 

“Nothing by definition doesn't look like anything.”

Yes Andrew, that sums it up nicely 

 

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2 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

I think the answer is in the question “What does nothing look like?” In order to “look like” anything requires that an object emits or reflects light to enable us to see it. Now that being the case then “nothing” cannot exist if it can be seen. The answer then becomes clear, it is impossible to see nothing therefore we cannot say what it looks like, it cannot exist if we can see it in order to make a comparison.

 

I would not go so far as to say that if something can't be seen - it does not exist.

I know that by "see" you mean detect in any suitable way, but I'll give you an example of something that you can't "detect" - and yet it exists.

PI.

Yep, mathematical constant of pi. It is a real thing - it is ratio of diameter and circumference of a circle. Not any circle - but every circle. It is also part of so many relationships and equations and pops up in places where you might not necessarily expect it.

We know a lot about it really and all of it was deduced by "thought experiment" of sorts. No one has ever seen, measured (to anywhere near precision we are able to calculate it) or written it down (again to satisfactory precision) - yet it is there, it is real and it exists.

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19 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

I think the answer is in the question “What does nothing look like?” In order to “look like” anything requires that an object emits or reflects light to enable us to see it. Now that being the case then “nothing” cannot exist if it can be seen. The answer then becomes clear, it is impossible to see nothing therefore we cannot say what it looks like, it cannot exist if we can see it in order to make a comparison.

@andrew s made a better fist of it with his very succinctly worded explanation 

“Nothing by definition doesn't look like anything.”

Yes Andrew, that sums it up nicely 

 

So it does have a look, a quality, something that separates it from anything else?

Jim 

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19 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I would not go so far as to say that if something can't be seen - it does not exist.

Nor would I, I did not say that. What I did say was “In order to “look like” anything requires that an object emits or reflects light to enable us to see it. Now that being the case then “nothing” cannot exist if it can be seen.”

in other words I wasn’t saying that if something can’t be seen it doesn’t exist, rather that if “nothing” can be seen it can’t exist. Two very different things.

I hate contradicting you @vlaiv, it makes me feel nervous.🤐

Keith

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2 minutes ago, saac said:

So it does have a look, a quality, something that separates it from anything else?

Jim 

Err, no Jim, just the opposite, it cannot be seen for the reasons I have stated, that to be seen requires an OBJECT to emit or reflect light, therefore “nothing” cannot be seen and therefore cannot be visually described. You can of course describe nothingness in a number of other ways.

Cheers

Keith

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6 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

I hate contradicting you it makes me feel nervous.🤐

Please don't feel that way. I like being contradicted. It makes me stop, re question myself and think harder about my claims. If I never do that - I will miss all the times I'm wrong - and it is a bad thing going around claiming stuff and being wrong.

8 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

in other words I wasn’t saying that if something can’t be seen it doesn’t exist, rather that if “nothing” can be seen it can’t exist. Two very different things.

Well, I misread your post for sure, but then again, I'm not sure that I understand what you mean that if something can be seen it can't exist.

I guess it is the matter of semantic.

Maybe I can give an example that is confusing me:

I can see that nothing satisfies following condition:  -2 * x + 1 = 2 * x + 2

:D - see that I did there - I "saw" "nothing" :D

Kidding aside - you are right, if by definition nothing can't be seen and we see it then it can't exist as such - but what would be definition of nothing that says it can't be seen?

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1 minute ago, Moonshed said:

Err, no Jim, just the opposite, it cannot be seen for the reasons I have stated, that to be seen requires an OBJECT to emit or reflect light, therefore “nothing” cannot be seen and therefore cannot be visually described. You can of course describe nothingness in a number of other ways.

Cheers

Keith

But as vlaiv suggested there are things which cannot be seen yet are real, he offered Pi. It's a relationship, it cannot be seen yet it can be named and defined. We could argue if Pi exists of course by our will or if it is recognised, or even required  by the universe! Continuing with my half baked philosophical, what about thought or love. Sure, some will argue these have a biochemical nature (electrical impulse) but a milenia of poets, dreamers and fools would suggest that these  have a greater part to their character; unmeasurable and unseen perhaps, but certainly not nothing!  

I'd agree with you only if we were to define the opposite of nothing  - something  - as that which can be seen (seen by the EM spectrum). But I think that is a bit restrictive, limiting our search for nothing to the physical. I wonder if what we are saying is that anything that emerges from the standard model cannot be nothing - it (the standard model) being everything.  So perhaps nothing does not exist in the universe. It is confined to an idea, a thought which we have conjurned from err something :) 

I'm going to bed now!

Jim 

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Hi @vlaiv 

I can see that you are still misunderstanding me because you just said “Well, I misread your post for sure, but then again, I'm not sure that I understand what you mean that if something can be seen it can't exist.”


You are making the same mistake about what I have said. I said that if NOTHING could be seen then it can’t be “nothing” because to be seen requires that an OBJECT emits or reflects light, therefore it’s not “nothing” if we can see it. I made no mention of “If SOMETHING can be seen it can’t exist.

You asked  “…if by definition nothing can't be seen and we see it then it can't exist as such - but what would be definition of nothing that says it can't be seen?”

I don’t have a problem with not seeing “nothing”, that much has been covered, but a definition of it that says it can’t be seen, is to me, unnecessary, we have already said why it can’t be seen, only objects that emit or reflect light can be seen. 
I quote below from my very old website my attempt at defining nothing, best read while drinking your favourite alcoholic beverage.

“A definition of Nothing.

The use of the word 'nothing' has a very special meaning in this context, unlike our every day use of the word. It means here quite literally nothing, the complete absence of everything. By definition then nothing must be an infinite void. If nothing exists it would HAVE to be infinite. This is a result of it not being allowed any boundaries, as a boundary would place a limit on nothing's size and furthermore would also indicate that there was something existing on the 'other ' side of the boundary, apart from the boundary itself existing. This would be contrary to our definition of both infinite and of nothing. This also, it should be noted, excludes anything existing in any other dimension, or dimensions, as a dimension would then be a boundary. Nothing then, when described as an infinite void, excludes all possibility of anything else existing, anywhere.

I hope I have made this point absolutely clear, this is what having nothing would mean, absolutely nothing anywhere. The only conclusion I can draw from that is nothing cannot exist, because we do.

Could nothing have existed in the past? No. If it existed in the past, then some event must have taken place to end it. An event would be impossible in nothing, so nothing could never have existed because we do, and as our universe now exists, nothing can never exist in the future either. Why could an event not happen in nothing? Because apart from the obvious that there is nothing to happen, an event would create and require a moment in time. There can be no time in nothing as relativity describes time as just another dimension.

As for Time, without it nothing must have always existed, it can not have a beginning or end because either would create a moment in time. It would in reality be meaningless to ask how long nothing has existed and how long it will continue to exist, it would be eternal and unchanging. Again, because we exist, nothing could not have had an existence because the creation of the universe would have required a significant change, thus contravening an unchanging nothing. We will look at this idea of creation in more detail later.

Nothing can not have any laws of physics because there is nothing to apply those laws to, also the very concept of having laws contravenes our description of nothing. In the absence of any basic laws, let alone matter, how could anything be created? Once again, because we exist nothing could not have.

Could the universe have been created in nothing? No, for the reasons stated above. However, just for the sake of argument, let us imagine it was. If the universe was created in nothing then where was it 'put'? If somewhere 'outside' of nothing, this would require an 'outside' to pre-exist, but it could not because that would require a boundary. It can not be ' put' within nothing, because containing a universe would no longer be within our definition of nothing.

So far then we have discovered that by using the simple definition of nothing as being an infinite void we have placed the following conditions on it:-

1) It must be timeless.

2) It must have always existed and could not have been created.

3) It is unchanging.

4) Nothing else can exist.

5) It is unable to create anything.

We have now concluded that nothing, when described as an infinite void, could never have existed because we do. There is however nothing wrong with the definition itself, the existence of nothing as an infinite void would appear to be logical, more than that, it HAS to be that way, nothing could not have any restraints of size or time placed upon it.”

That’s my thoughts on the matter, the best I am able to come up with and that was many years ago. Feel free to find fault or criticise. 
 

Cheers

Keith

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Space is real, so it's something. Nothing is the opposite of something and so is equal to absolute non-existence. No space, no universe, no matter, no energy, and no flaming Britain's Got Talent.  "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could"!  Julie Andrews, The Sound Of Music.  (1960 something).

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28 minutes ago, saac said:

But as vlaiv suggested there are things which cannot be seen yet are real, he offered Pi. It's a relationship, it cannot be seen yet it can be named and defined. We could argue if Pi exists of course by our will or if it is recognised, or even required  by the universe!

Hi Jim,

I agree with that comment that some things that are real cannot be seen, I have no problem with that, be it some esoteric mathematical formula or gravity, they are real but cannot be seen.

The problem here is that I have never discussed that point, it arose from a misunderstanding by @vlaiv of my reason why “nothing” can’t be seen, I have never mentioned anything at all about something that cannot be seen, that’s just a misunderstanding and I hope I have now clarified that point.

I am also off to bed now, way past my bedtime.

Cheers

Keith

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If you have Amazon prime I highly recommend this documentary by well known physicist  Jim Al-Khalili, it is a riveting documentary about the science of empty space. It is called “everything and nothing” a wonderful watch if you have prime, and if you dont have Prime, it’s worth seeking out on some other platform, the question you pose in this thread is explored in great detail.

Edited by Sunshine
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8 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Space is real, so it's something. Nothing is the opposite of something and so is equal to absolute non-existence. No space, no universe, no matter, no energy, and no flaming Britain's Got Talent.  "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could"!  Julie Andrews, The Sound Of Music.  (1960 something).

Because of your post I now have that infernal song running through my head. I need a stiff drink 😄

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On 10/04/2023 at 18:23, vlaiv said:

Similarly - black is not absence of light - it is thing of contrast. You need to have something that is white in order to perceive something as black. If you have no reference (in absence of all light) - most people "see" sort of dark gray (see link I provided few posts up).

Maybe I'm not most people! :D That mine I was talking about: no shades of grey, no light what so ever, nothing hitting the retina, no something that is white, no reference, no dark grey, just black.

I couldn't see anything about black in the link, but I did skim read it. :D

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On 10/04/2023 at 19:03, ollypenrice said:

No, I'm not having this. To quote Wittgenstein (and give my point a bit of gravitas :grin:) language is public and if I asked you, or anyone else looking at my car, what colour it was you would say black. You would not say, 'It has no colour, it manifests the absence of colour.'  Come on now, admit it! :grin::grin:

Olly

But that's just language as you say, or semantics. We label everything. I don't break everything down into its constituent parts, but I recognise that that is what they are, a table, a cloud, a rainbow. Yes, of course, I would say a car is black, however, maybe not if I see yours now! :D

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2 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Thanks, read it now! :) But I will have to stick by my original comment and quote the article in saying maybe I am not, "many people". My experience, totally subjective and scientifically unproven, was of black, no grey or speckling.

I'm resisting the Spinal Tap reference to their Black Album, but only just! :D

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The question was:

What does nothing look like?

Answer:

This question cannot be asked as a “nothing” cannot be looked at.

Its like asking “what is North of the North Pole?”

Just my view 🤔

 

 

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There cannot be nothing within a given space. It seems that matter pops into existence then immediately destroys itself in a perceived “nothingness” somehow, energy is borrowed from outside the nothingness and quickly repaid as matter enters and exits the nothing.  Once again I’ll mention, if you have Prime you must see “Everything and Nothing” these discussions may take on a whole new life.

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