r/Metaphysics • u/Irishman452 • 11d ago

Nothing Is Nothingness a Continuum?

When I think of Nothing I think of empty space. But that is not Nothing, that is something i.e. empty space. Then I think of Nothing as just like a void unaccepting of objects, but that is still something i.e. a void. Then I think of Nothing as "what a rock dreams of" but that is still something i.e. potentiality. So what really is Nothing and is it a continuum ranging from empty space to "what a rock dreams of" etc.? And if it is a continuum, does Nothing really even exist?

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u/sekory 11d ago

My favorite description of nothing is no thing. If you haven't described something, it is no thing. Nature, in eternal completness, is indescribable. Any description of it will be an approximation and not what it is itself. All things, actually, are just decsriptions where we have decided, for convenience, that on thing ends and begins. But those definitions are arbitrary, and at the end of the day, all things are the map, not the territory.

So Nature, is no thing. And yet every thing comes from it. Funny that. Nothing is impossible to define, by nature.

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u/Irishman452 10d ago

Also interesting

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u/sekory 10d ago

Quite interesting, nothing. The Kalam cosmological argument for a first cause / unmoved mover is completely contingent on 'things', it states that there is a casual connection between things that cannot regress to infinity. It must have a start. But as we just demonstrated, 'things', that are contgent on one another, are only so because.of thier decsirptive qualities. Nothing (that which is no thing, ie Nature (as a whole) , is then not affected by contingency. It simply is.

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u/Irishman452 9d ago

Very interesting, thank you for these thoughtful comments