Can there be such a thing as nothing?

[QED]

If we try to clear our minds and use them to conceive of nothingness it almost hurts. It's as if it's an impossible feat for the imagination. Logic and language fully support this notion. How can there be such a thing as nothing? Is this logical contradiction just a play on words or could it be the reason why everything exists?

[harvey1]

This is known however, Quantum Decoherence is only viable at very short range. Path integrals quickly put pay to superposition. It's plain old averaging at work.

Not so. Decoherence does not resolve the measurement problem. See this paper for an overall summary as to the reasons.

However, as aside, why would use a path integral interpretation of QM since this is a normative approach to the laws which I would think that you would reject.

It looks like we're getting into another big dispute here. If the regular patterns that we observe in nature is not broken then mathematics is just another symbolic language. Information/software is a transferrable pattern that rides on hardware. The uncertainty principle is a property of the hardware of our universe, not some rule existing in a platonic world of ideas prescribing how the universe should act.

On the contrary, if quantum mechanics is a result of information theory, then this would be consistent with the logicist view that logic is fundamental to the universe, not material processes themselves. In any case, quantum electrodynamics theory requires the creation of virtual particles from nothing and annihilation into nothing. You want to discount this, but this is what the most accurate theory of science says about virtual particles. If you have a QED theory that shows virtual particles not to exist or be something else, then be my guest in re-writing quantum theory.

[Curious]

I think we need an explanation of the word nothing here to avoid confusion. Nothing means, quite literally, no thing. It is not the absence of just spacetime as harvey1 contends or the absence of any other thing in particular but the absence of all things. There has never been a single observation that has ever supported the idea that nothing is anything more than a purely human concept. The spacetime data that we have shows quite clearly that there is no necessity to believe that there was ever a "time" prior to its existence or that it could not have always existed even before the birth of this particular current universe. I find it amusing that we are all in the philosophy forum expending so much energy discussing nothing at all.

[ST88]

Take a look at this paper. The authors postulate that our (3+1) brane (embedded in a AdS geometry) might have arisen from the "collision of two bubbles filled with AdS" that arose from quantum tunnelling (i.e., from nothing).

OK. Now I feel like I have absolutely no education at all. You may wish to skip my lack of understanding in this area: I would not feel cheated if you did not wish to respond. But it would appear that this "dwindling" would violate the Planck length, and that "tunneling" would not remove the necessity for there to be something that "tunneled" from here to there. If I'm getting this correctly, I think you're saying that this universe could slip out of existence in its current recognizable state and emerge in a completely different state somewhere else, leaving this brane essentially empty, hence the "nothing". That doesn't exactly equate to "nothingness" as described in this thread, nor does it cause a violation of some kind of "nothing comes from nothing" paradox (my term).

But, my point is that if the universe didn't arise from a material world, then atheism is not possible. This is an issue of logic existing independent of the universe. That is, logic is a language. If the language is not understood, then it is gibberish. Without a mind, it is impossible for the logic-independent world to rationally cause a material world. Let me describe it like this:

1. The (meta)universe is caused by some kind of logic that exists "above" or "apart" from the (meta)universe
2. A statement of this logic (or group of statements of this logic) require there to be a (meta)universe, and therefore the (meta)universe exists
3. Each statement or group of logic statements has some kind of meaning in order for the statement to cause the (meta)universe
4. The meaning of a logic statement requires comprehension by a mind
5. If no mind, each statement of logic is gibberish and cannot instantiate a (meta)universe since it would provide no logic to do so
6. There is a (meta)universe, hence if logic exists independently of the (meta)universe, then it must be comprehended and controlled by a mind
7. Thus, only a "brute fact" material universe can satisfy an atheist requirement that a God not exist

Note: I removed a reference to Machio Kaku talking about bubbles of nothing because I couldn't verify the source...

Well now. I see a few problems here. If you can assert that logic is required for the universe to exist and your definition of logic requires comprehension by the mind, I don't see how you can avoid a supreme intelligence. However, logic is independent of consciousness. Your assertion that "logic" is gibberish without a conscious mind is utter nonsense. Logic exists whether we notice it or not in the same way that mathematics is something that we discover and not invent. The "logic" you speak of that must exist if the universe exists is encapsulated entirely within the mechanics of physics. No one would assert that a conscious mind that understands physics is required for physics to exist.

Furthermore, your assertion that there are rules the universe must follow because of this logic is misleading. There is no reason to expect that the pre-universe condition was devoid of any logic at all even if those logic rules were different from the ones we enjoy now. Instantiation of this universe does not imply a beginning to all existence, just a beginning to the set of rules we can observe.

[Curious]

Using the standard mathematical operators I would be grateful if anybody out there could explain to me how we could get a finite outcome given the original operand of nothing(ok lets call it zero, I know it's not strictly speaking the same thing but it's probably the best we can do). Using the number 1 (or any other number) we can accomplish this easily by adding to itself(replication), division, addition and subtraction. I can't think how we could get any thing other than nothing if I start with nothing (or even know whether the operators would count as something so would be disqualified).
You could say nothing divided by nothing but this would not create a finite outcome unless you were to accept that an infinite outcome could be the sum of an infinite number of finite outcomes. This would also depend on the operator being able to act upon nothing which, to me at least, seems a far cry from an operator acting upon zero. If nothing existed would nothing then equal 1(total) not 0 and if this was the case all operations upon nothing would then create quantities of "nothing" which would then equal nothing(total).
However, if we accept that it is at least possible for an operator to act upon nothing we could subtract nothing(total1) from nothing(total1) which would give nothing(total0). If we were to apply boolean logic to this would we be able to say :
nothing(total<>0) is NOT a thing == nothing
nothing(total0) is NOT NOT a thing == thing.
My head hurts.

[Nyril]

To get something from nothing, raise a number to the 0th power.

22^0 = 1

[Curious]

To get something from nothing, raise a number to the 0th power.

22 ^ 0 = 1

Nice try but really where did you get the 22 from?
And anyway to raise this number by this power we are really sayiing:

1 ((times 22) zero times) = 1 or 1()=1

8 ^ 2 is the same as :
1 * ( 8 * 8 )

8 ^ -2 is the same as:
1 / ( 8 * 8 ) or ( 1 / 8 ) / 8

[Curious]

Looking at it from another (possibly insane) angle, if nothing is the absence of all things, even the absence of the possibility of nothing, would this mean that because there was no possibility of there being nothing that something would have to exist?
My head still hurts

[Cathar1950]

I see a lot of different meanings to nothing being talked about.
Nothing like mathematics is a human construct and has it's limits.
But it also has many uses. Thinking about nothing does seem silly. Where is my object or subject or verb? Anything to hang on to. But when my girlfriend asks me what I am thinking about and I say nothing I mean nothing that you need to know or I was day dreaming or I don't remember.

Can you actually imagine the design of a human female left to random rules?

I think I dated her.

[harvey1]

If you can assert that logic is required for the universe to exist and your definition of logic requires comprehension by the mind, I don't see how you can avoid a supreme intelligence. However, logic is independent of consciousness. Your assertion that "logic" is gibberish without a conscious mind is utter nonsense. Logic exists whether we notice it or not in the same way that mathematics is something that we discover and not invent. The "logic" you speak of that must exist if the universe exists is encapsulated entirely within the mechanics of physics. No one would assert that a conscious mind that understands physics is required for physics to exist.

Logic depends on something being true in order for it be logic. In the case of your example, of course the laws of physics would exist if no conscious human mind did not exist. The question, though, is why. If it is because the universe would exist anyway, this would only beg the question. Why does the universe exist? If the answer is because the laws of physics exist and that's what causes the universe to exist, then the answer would have to be that the laws of physics are true. If it's not for that reason, then there could be no rational reason for the laws of physics instantiating a universe.

Defining truth then becomes the most important aspect of understanding why it is the laws of physics would bring about a universe. It doesn't require a human mind, but that's only because no human mind makes something true. It's either true or it's not. But, truth requires us to look at it more objectively and decipher how it is that truth could require a background mind.

Perhaps I understand the way you look at it. You might be thinking that if logic statement L is objectively valid, then the truth of L does not depend on a background mind agreeing it is true. It is, afterall, either true or not. The problem with that view, though, is that you are not considering that the L is normative with respect to the universe by causing somethign. That is, it's truth does not depend on being just descriptive of the universe's behavior, rather, the universe's behavior depends on L being true. Therefore, it becomes important to ask what makes L true, and in addition, how is it that L's being true has any effect at all on the world.

In the case of what makes L true, presumably there is some kind of self-consistency between L and the formal system that L occurs. So, if we consider the causality condition as effective for formal system U (for Universe with a large "U"), then L either is consistent with U or it is not. If not, then L does not belong to U, and therefore is not true. If L belongs to U, then it is true and somehow instantiates the (meta)universe.

In other words, L satisfies some self-consistency condition of U, and therefore it is true. The term satisfies is a semantic relation that exists for all statements that are true in U. As a statement of language it must be interpreted. Interpretation of language requires a background mind. In order to show it doesn't, you'd have to show how you avoid a mind with language interpretation. I don't think you can, therefore I say that a background mind is needed if logic/mathematics/physics/causality is the cause of the universe.

Furthermore, your assertion that there are rules the universe must follow because of this logic is misleading. There is no reason to expect that the pre-universe condition was devoid of any logic at all even if those logic rules were different from the ones we enjoy now. Instantiation of this universe does not imply a beginning to all existence, just a beginning to the set of rules we can observe.

I'm not saying the pre-universe condition was devoid of logic, nor am I saying that the instantiation of this universe implies a beginning to all existence. I am saying that even if the (meta)universe that precedes our universe in it's cause is finite or infinite, it still must be governed by some kind of logic, and therefore a background mind is needed to satisfy this requirement.

[Curious]

I'm not saying the pre-universe condition was devoid of logic, nor am I saying that the instantiation of this universe implies a beginning to all existence. I am saying that even if the (meta)universe that precedes our universe in it's cause is finite or infinite, it still must be governed by some kind of logic, and therefore a background mind is needed to satisfy this requirement.

I'm still not getting why a mind must be present prior to the rules. We use these very rules to form logical assumptions not the other way round. We do not create a logic and then expect the rules to fall into place to fit our logic. We form our logic depending on the rules we have. If we say a tiger is a cat and a cat is a mammal therefore a tiger is a mammal we do not make it so by the use of our logic, we form this conclusion using logic depending on the known set of rules and sets. Before this logical assumption, a tiger would still be a mammal. If cats were reptiles, our logic would lead us to the conclusion that a tiger was a reptile and again the tiger would be reptilian before our logic lead us to this. I don't see how you come to the conclusion that rules are dictated by logic when quite obviously logic is dictated by the rules.