Philosophy True Nothingness

O.K, I know this is probably one of the most idiotic questions you'll ever see, and I'm not even sure if this qualifies as philosophy, but here goes. This is in no way going to affect any of our lives, but it's a matter I've always been rather curious about.

What does nothingness look like? What preceeded the galaxies? If it was just the absence of color (black), well, that's still SOMETHING (if that makes even the slightest bit of sense). So... what is true nothingness?

 

I don't really think it's that easy. And.. well, it's pretty self explanatory. It's the lack of anything there, nothingness is nothing. Nothing has no color, no shape, no odor, no taste, no smell, no sound, because it is nothing. There is really no way to describe "nothingness" except for that one word:

Nothing.

S'just what I think, at least.

 

That was.... blatantly obvious.

Well I feel like a Grade A moron now. Dunno how I could've overlooked that...

I guess I was imagining "nothingness" as a place, but nothingness obviously isn't a place because in reality it's just...

...nothing.

Well, this thread is now rather pointless...

 

Just close your eyes, and there ya go.

 

Actually, when I imagine nothing, I end up imagining a vast space. Kinda like outer space, without the stars.

I don't think that humans have the capacity to imagine nothingness. It might drive us insane. It's really a very good question. The best way to describe it is not to describe it at all. Even leaving a blank space as the description would be leaving something.

 

I would say that it is impossible for us to come to know nothingness, what it looks or doesn't look like, smell, sound, etc. Even closing your eyes, you still see something, the back of your eyelids. The only way we can know what nothingness exists is independent of our own experience, or a priori. I'm not sure if nothing actually even exists.

It's also more of a figure of speech. You look inside a box and there is nothing in it.. even though there is air and probably other molecules in it.

Meh, I've got nothin'!

 

The closest anology I can come up with is total vacuum.

As far as "whats outside" of the universe goes, it may well be that we just "come out" the other side... picture a video game screen where something runs to the left, runs offscreen, and reappears on the right. That's an actual theory.

 

Im kinda in the same boat with Meaikoh Takashi here but i think of it slightly differently;

Humans cannot know "Nothing" for as soon as they identify it as "Nothing" it becomes "Something" despite it being "Nothing" though this is just based on the way we word & identify things.

 

That was my train of thought exactly, thus why I asked the question

But yeah, I don't think humans can even comprehend true nothingness any more then we can comprehend eternity or infinity. I think the best description of it was the one Amon Sena gave to be honest. Just...

...nothing.

 

I normally think about it the same way I think about death, closest way to imagine it is as a total lack of response from your senses. This is what I do

Quiet room, close eyes, ignore all senses, slowly tune down my sense of conciuosness(sic) (Dont ask me how I do it, I cant explain.)

It's a form of meditation, but I can only do it for a minute or so before I start to think about the nothing, which shatters the thing itself

I just realised how colossusly(sic) unhelpful this post was.

 

nothingness? hmm...
no sight, smell, sound or feeling, no conscious thought, no sense of there even being nothing.i suppose molecules and even elements wouldn't be there too.

i agree with this. i don't think humans can comprehend true nothingness.

 

Nothingness is whatever the person makes it. Like, to me, nothingness is just empty space. If you want to see nothingness, take your hands, and catch a handfull of air. That, to me, is nothingness.

 

Er, I'm not sure I understand you there Miko. If you catch a handful of air, you're still looking at, well, air. It can't really be viewed as nothing, because air is still something.

 

Actually, Air is the mixture of gases in the atmosphere. When I say air, I mean just cup your hands, there is nothing (visible) in your hands. That is nothingness. You probably still don't get it do you?

 

Well apparently, the way you're trying to explain it, just because you can't see something means that there's nothing there. That's what it sounds like at least. And although you corrected yourself (in some way) you just went right back to saying what is actually something is really nothing because it's not visible.

Whether Kagome's Arrow gets it or not, I don't know. But apparently, I don't. :\

"'splain, Lucy! 'splain!"

(And pardon my "I Love Lucy" reference)

 

So because we cant see it, it counts as nothing-ness?

Wow, some people have called me empty-hearted before, but this takes the cake! :anime:

 

Nothingness as Amon put it, would be nothing. If you can describe it, wouldnt it be something?

 

This is a radical belief, but I think that 'nothingness' must have the essence of everything within it. Because 'nothingness' will eventually form into everything, it must have the ability or a part to do so. Thus, it is compiled of everything, that ultimately creates this 'nothing'. Sorta like how 255 R G B creates black.

Either that, or nothingness is incomprehensible by any knowledge known to man. There cannot be any object that it is perceived to be here. It cannot be a vacuum, because a vacuum is something. It cannot be a black space, because black space is something, and so on. Even if you call it 'nothing', you would be trying to define it with a word, making it something. Thus, it becomes incomprehensible.

Interesting, no?

 

...That makes white.

 

White it is, then. Either way, both white and black represent nothingness to an extent. Black represents the absence of all, the uncomprehensibility of 'nothingness', and White represents the fact that all is there, yet it still seems blank, empty. This is my proposal of the 'nothingness'. As we should know, 'white light', when ran through a prism, creates the spectrum that makes up the colors that define our world, though 'white light' itself does not look of color at all.