Can you imagine nothing in a world of nothing?

[Reluctantly]

What would it be?

 

[Architect]

big bang minus 1 second

 

[Hawkeye]

It wouldn't be anything. Isn't that the point?

 

[Cognisant]

If I answer "no" it creates a paradox.

 

[Cherry Cola]

you can't imagine nothingness, you can imagine endless black Newtonian space.. but I don't think that's quite the same thing

 

[Brontosaurie]

nothing isn't

 

[ZenRaiden]

I experience nothing all the time when someone asks me what I was doing. It is not nothing, but to them it is nothing, so I say I did nothing.

 

[RaBind]

nothing in a world of nothing would be everything.

 

[Hawkeye]

nothing in a world of nothing would be everything.

This sentence is oxymoronic and contradictory

 

[GodOfOrder]

The problem is illustrated in language. Nothing= no thing. We perceive things only as they are. Thus we can conceive of things only as filled space or vacuum. Everything in our perception is centered around the concept of things, in relation to time and space. So we can not imagine things outside of this framework.

Vacuum, can only be defined as absence. Absence, implies the existence of things. Void is no better.

This is paradoxical. Nothing in a world of nothingness= absence of absence. absence of absence= filled space.

 

[Cognisant]

Lol, oxymoronic, perfect word choice.

And btw am I the only one that gets that the trick to imagining nothing is not to try?
To imagine nothing you simply stop imagining, it's easy, even as you're reading this now you're too busy deciphering the meaning of my text to imagine anything so therefore you are in fact imagining nothing.

Just don't try to consciously perceive yourself imagining nothing as that would be attempting to imagine a paradox.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Lol, oxymoronic, perfect word choice.
To imagine nothing you simply stop imagining, it's easy, even as you're reading this now you're too busy deciphering the meaning of my text to imagine anything so therefore you are in fact imagining nothing.

when all your imaginations come true you'll also imagine nothing!

But wouldn't it be simpler to say that you wouldn't imagine? That by definition if you imagine, you imagine something. Imagining nothing feels kinda like driving a car without a car.

 

[Cognisant]

But wouldn't it be simpler to say that you wouldn't imagine?

Precisely.

To imagine nothing is the same as to not imagine.

 

[BigApplePi]

What would it be?

I experience nothing all the time when someone asks me what I was doing. It is not nothing, but to them it is nothing, so I say I did nothing.

Presumably there is nothing all around us. I think ZenRaiden is onto something.

We can be aware there is nothing but can't get a hold of it as tampering with nothing converts nothing into something.

If you get nothing out of what I just said, feel free to know you are close to being enlightened and there is nothing quite like that.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Technically, the world is already mostly nothing.

 

[just george]

Technically, the world is already mostly nothing.

Yes, but those little bubbles of nothing are everything

Anyway I've been trying to imagine the universe being nothing since I was a little kid. My brain takes a timeout

 

[Hadoblado]

Holy shit Adaire is that a psychatog?

I think it's possible, and I think I'm doing it (though I'm really not sure).

One can imagine the absence between two points.

One can imagine things without physical context (a cow in a void for instance).

In the above example, where you imagine the cow, the non-existent parameters of space are abstractly processed, you don't actually process the infinite space.

Thus, one can imagine nothing in a void to the same extent one can imagine a cow in a void.

Or something

A really good question.

 

[Rook]

The question is useless. For nothing to exist, you must not exist. Thus, when there is nothing, there is no way for anything to exist and thus imagine or grasp anything of nothing. This is way I maintain whe will never understand the singularity and what came before. Even though there may have been something, to us it is nothing, and cannot be imagined. If there was then something where we see only nothing, are whe then nothing, or something, for that something?

 

[Hadoblado]

It takes place in the imagination, which doesn't require a representation of the imaginer himself.

 

[Rook]

Yet again the same principle. To imagine nothing is to grasp nothing, to grasp nothing, there must be nothing, thus no observer imagining that wich cannot be imagined. We once thought air was nothing, empty space, yet it is not, atoms exist. The nearest to nothing may now be empty outer space, yet that also is part of the universe and not yet fully understood. To imagine nothing is impossible, as one tries to create the concept of nothingness in the imagination, something is created. The nearest we humans can come to nothing within our minds is to clear them, such is the practise of many meditators. Yet the created state still exists, and the subconcious still churns. So it is impossible to imagine nothing, the only way we humans can achieve nothingness of mind, is to exhale our last breaths. Then there is nothing, and we shall not even be consious of it.

 

[Hadoblado]

Imagination =/= subconscious processes, though they can both impact each other.

Imagination =/= conforming to the realities of existence.

Even if the concept of nothing is in itself something, that something exists as a property of matter within this existence, not the imagined model.

Welcome to the forum btw, you'll fit right in.

 

[Rook]

Very well then, nothingness can exist as a conceptual hypothesis, but I maintain that true nothingness can never be imagined by our brains. Thanks for the welcome.

 

[BigApplePi]

Yes, but those little bubbles of nothing are everything

Anyway I've been trying to imagine the universe being nothing since I was a little kid. My brain takes a timeout

Are we being fooled by thinking of nothing ... or just something we don't knowingly ever interact with?

 

[Hawkeye]

Very well then, nothingness can exist as a conceptual hypothesis, but I maintain that true nothingness can never be imagined by our brains. Thanks for the welcome.

Totally agree with this. The same applies to infinity.

You can understand what it represents, but you cannot actually imagine it.

 

[~~~]

No, but I can imagine Bellerophon.

 

[BigApplePi]

The same applies to infinity.

You can understand what it represents, but you cannot actually imagine it.

Good point!

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Holy shit Adaire is that a psychatog?

Indeed it is.

 

[Reluctantly]

Yes, but those little bubbles of nothing are everything

Anyway I've been trying to imagine the universe being nothing since I was a little kid. My brain takes a timeout

I had a moment when I was very young, where I realized there would be literally nothing. Meaning no time from which things can be, no blackness to the absence of light, no spacial reality from which to judge the nothing from the something; and then I imagine there is no way for anything to live or have a thought alone or even for there to exist thoughts about reality.

And it truly scares me then, because from what I imagine, then nothing could ever exist in any form. At least if something is empty, I can fill it back up again, but if reality itself were nothing, I imagine there would never be anything. And even the thought of there being nothing, could not exist, if reality were nothing, paradoxically. It's as if the ability to then imagine something (even as nothing) is self-evident that something must then exist, although we (humans) like to argue about what that something really is or how something can really exist; but then regardless, if we can argue about it, something exists, and if something exists, we serve a kind of purpose in itself in regards to the existence of reality.

Totally agree with this. The same applies to infinity.

You can understand what it represents, but you cannot actually imagine it.

I can imagine infinity within a context though. The process of finding Pi can be imagined, just as the other infinite series that converge. I suppose the series that don't converge are arguably impossible to imagine, since they do not seem to represent anything in particular though.

 

[Hawkeye]

I can imagine infinity within a context though. The process of finding Pi can be imagined, just as the other infinite series that converge. I suppose the series that don't converge are arguably impossible to imagine, since they do not seem to represent anything in particular though.

You can only imagine infinity as a pseudo-infinity. For example: imagining walking down an "infinite" corridor until the day you die. It has the potential to be endless, but alas, ends when you die.

Besides, there are real number so large that we cannot comprehend them; there literally isn't enough room in our brains to accommodate them.

Imagining nothingness is an oxymoron. You're attempting to construct an abstract concept of complete blankness.

 

[Rook]

That is why it is impossible: If I can imagine and grasp nothing, I must not exist. Infinity is understood to continue forever, but it's infinite nature cannot be grasped through our finite existence. Thus something cannot grasp nothing, infinity cannot be grasped by minds that are finite. To perform these actions is to alter the paradimes of our existence, the very nature of our universe. Humanity is not that capable.

 

[Hadoblado]

infinity cannot be grasped by minds that are finite. To perform these actions is to alter the paradimes of our existence, the very nature of our universe.

That depends on what level of comprehension you define 'grasp'as. The mind has great potential at simplifying information. If we could not at all grasp infinite, there wouldn't be a word or sign for it, and we wouldn't be able to determine traits of infinities such as that there are "larger"and "smaller" infinities.

Also, there is a very big difference between infinite and nothing. It doesn't take a computer with infinite memory to store absolutely zero information on *arbitrary example* birds. The amount of information on birds stored in the computer is endless (as it is beginningless), but that does not imply that a computer can't not have data files specifically for bird information.

I can't remember what I was trying to say
Ima go do some homework and leave you poor folks alone.

 

[Rook]

To give something a name and a horisontal eight-symbol does not mean we have grasped it. It means we have some idea of its nature, it means we can put it in a limited context. Thus we can name infinity and nothingness, but to imagine it, our minds must exist forever and not exist respectively.

 

[Hadoblado]

im·ag·i·na·tion
/iˌmajəˈnāSHən/
Noun
The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses: "a vivid imagination".

How is representing it conceptually not imagining? I note that while you think the naming of something isn't sufficient to say we understand it (I agree), you didn't respond to the part of my post referring to the things that we have figured out about it. That we have made any headway at all is evidence for the manipulable nature of the construct, without which such inferences would be impossible. We're not just naming, we're defining and exploring.

The way you describe imagination is inconsistent with the way the term is used: you are too strict. I have a cognitive representation of myself without a doubt, but I would certainly struggle to imagine the entirety of myself at the cellular or molecular level. The way the mind works is not to comprehend perfectly, but to simplify until something is conceptually useful. The standard which you hold us to for the imagining of infinity is not the same one you'd hold us to for imagining most things.

 

[Rook]

Yes, we simplify and "understand" these concepts in our minds. We understand gravity and atoms, not fully. But we observe it and can keep on observing it. We can have mostly accurate representations of them in our minds. But such an understanding of nothingness and infinity is unnatainable. It is like imagining a new colour, were our minds reach a barrier that has no properties, our imaginations are blunted, frozen, baffled. To imagine that is impossible. We are limited in that prospect. Sad, yes, but true. We may have stated qualities that these concepts will have, but we can never imagine the concepts themselves in the same way we imagine gravitation and atoms.We may simplify it in our brains, yet it is not the thing that we simplify, rather the stated qualities. To name and class something is not to understand it. Our minds are severely limited, we can only yearn for these concepts that cannot be imagined.

 

[Hawkeye]

im·ag·i·na·tion
/iˌmajəˈnāSHən/
Noun
The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses: "a vivid imagination".

The dictionary defines nothing as "something that does not exist" which is paradoxical.

If nothing is the absence of anything and everything; no matter how hard you try to imagine nothing, you will inevitably be creating something in your mind to conceptualise it.

As far as imagination is concerned absolute nothingness is unachievable.

 

[kvothe27]

The problem is with the human mind and how it often tries to make sense of things. We tend to think in dichotomies and in an ambivalent way. So, when we became conscious of something that was finite, we were tempted to come up with something that was un-finite, hence infinite. Likewise, once we became conscious of a thing, we wanted to make distinction of it being an un-thing or nothing. In this way, we often come up with concepts that serve a purpose for making distinctions with things of which we are already conscious, but that doesn't necessarily mean we understand these concepts that were defined and understood strictly in relation to something we can grasp or something of which we are conscious.

Well, this is how I'm choosing to understand this. I didn't read the rest of the thread closely, so I'm sorry if this was already said.

Edit: By the above, I do not mean to give an historical account, by any means. I'm just using these concepts to demonstrate how such bizarre concepts might arise due to the way in which we tend to use language.

 

[Rook]

Yet these bizarre concepts do exist, in our mathemics and the physical world(not nothingness per se, although it may describe a vacuum). So they are not paradoxes created by our minds, rather they are things that can be described within a minimum degree, but not fully imagined. Take o and things like infite regresses as examples.

 

[Ink]

I remember saying this or something similar (don't you ever think of where you were before you existed? Like, what did it look like?) to my ISFP friend in first or second grade. He didn't...

 

[RaBind]

Nothing doesn't exist. Everything is a different state of being. So nothing is completely different from everything, so there's no way of guessing what nothing is like. Hell I'll even bet that the state of complete nothing is impossible, similarly to an object with all it's properties as an opposite to anything that exists.

For example if I said imagine an undiscovered ancient creature that is an ancestor of the modern elephant, you'll probably be way off in your imagination from the real elephant's ancestor creature thing. However it's likely that you'll guess some general thing right, for example that it will be a mammal or it will be a herbivore. You don't have this process of using guessing, through inspiration from previous experience, while imagining nothing.

 

[Rook]

Nicely stated.

 

[DelusiveNinja]

Me: *talking to self about question*
Aunt: What are you talking about?
Me: Nothing.

 

[Rook]

And so it shall be written: What is nothing? It is the ultimate answer-the bane of invasive relatives and the diffuser of akward encounters.

 

[Affinity]

If you can define it then I can imagine it, otherwise I'm gonna go with undefined.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

no because then this thought wouldn't exi

really, though that sounds like a blackhole. The inverse of everything.

(nothing) X nothing^2/1 with all asymptotal dots in the negative x y z and fourth dimension in the negative

 

[Brontosaurie]

can you smoke copious amounts of pot along with several friends in a moderately spacious apartment?

 

[Hawkeye]

Imagining nothing is about as possible as winning the thing below:

Spoiler

The Game.

 

[xbox]

*mind blown*

 

[doncarlzone]

Nothing doesn't exist. Everything is a different state of being. So nothing is completely different from everything, so there's no way of guessing what nothing is like. Hell I'll even bet that the state of complete nothing is impossible, similarly to an object with all it's properties as an opposite to anything that exists.

For example if I said imagine an undiscovered ancient creature that is an ancestor of the modern elephant, you'll probably be way off in your imagination from the real elephant's ancestor creature thing. However it's likely that you'll guess some general thing right, for example that it will be a mammal or it will be a herbivore. You don't have this process of using guessing, through inspiration from previous experience, while imagining nothing.

I got nothing to add.

 

[RaBind]

I got nothing to add.

yet you added something.

 

[Vict]

Yes.