Is an Empty set,itself, a member of its set? If so, empty set is not a nothingness.

Absolute nothingness in the endless itself.

Absolute nothingness would mean nothingness everywhere and always. The fact of asking this question is already something and supposing something. Therefore absolute nothingness is impossible.

One moer point "nothingness" means "there not being anything (not something)", and "be (being)" means "existence", which according to your definition is an attribute - and an attribute can only be an attribute of something (anything). So the phrase "there be (there is) nothing" is internally contradictory, excludes itself.

Because I have started a similar discussion some months ago taking us from 'nothing' towards 'nothing at all matters' :)-, I feel that I need to explain how I have used the label 'absolute' in that context, since I fear a misunderstanding.

Example:

'A' is heavier than 'B' => relative definition of the book A.

'A' is heavy. => absolute definition of the book A

My question was (one of the questions): Can we define the concept of nothing in absolute terms?

(Examples: A is not perceivable,

A is indescribable or

A is indestructible or ...)

I dislike profoundly the idea of defining 'nothing' as the absence/ lack of any/something, because following the same quite uninspired logic we may reach the conclusion that: something is the lack of nothing! Language games lead to this type of 'poetry'.

So how you define 'nothing' if it is not 'absence of anything'? I dare say I don't understand you anymore if you reject that simple definition. In fact, as nothing "is" in fact nothing, and nothing more, any kind of defintion thereof may be called a 'language game'.

Tall is not short, red is not green, large is not narrow, the darkness is the absence of light, well, they all are definitions of the same type. To me they are simply unuseful.

Absolute nothingness has no characteristics, no qualities, no properties, no attributes. If it had an attribute then it would be Something. In this sense I fully agree with Roy!

This might be related to Russell's Paradox: ``There doesn't exist a set of all sets."

Is 'something' a thing or a concept?

I disagree. Both 'nothing' and 'something' are indefinite pronouns, they convey ideas, do not identify a specific thing. Therefore they include particles like all, every, some, none etc

Yes. In short, nothingness is the same as lack of space (obviously 3-D space). More, see my article:

http://www.eioba.com/a/34hz/what-is-nothing

The nothingness can get meaning only in the logic of the infinite. In other logics it has no meaning, and will lead to tautology and word game. The logic of the infinite is a whole system of interpretation, that uses the meaning of zero, and interpretes with geometrical images.

The notion nothing(ness), skipping its colloquialisms, has its value in physics, similarly as zero in mathematics. It's value consists in being "complement" of the universal space. As I said earlier, by nothing one should understand lack of space. As to the infinity, it's a process of something that never terminates.

I sense at least three meanings of "nothing": 1) zero as part of a scale, an arbitrary "center"; 2) the absence of something once observed (or imagined); 3) the void, null.

I think of (3) as an abstraction of (2). It is a "pointing" derived from our experience of things in the "real" world. Repetitively taking away quantity until there is "nothing left" give us (2). Imagining everything taken away until there is nothing left of anything is a "pointing" to (3).

I use the term "pointing" because I am struggling to differentiate between models of things which have some basis in reality (and I am consequently struggling with "reality" as well) versus models which have no basis in reality but only exist because they are put together from models of models of models (or however many levels of abstraction one feels appropriate). I see (1) as a convention for communication, (2) as a finitely actionable process, and (3) as something imagined as possible by infinitely applying rules derived (abstracted) from finitely observed actions on finitely observed objects.

"Can there be absolute nothingness" is really 2 separate questions I would think, as follows:

1- First, can there ever have been absolute nothingness, i.e. if there had never been a universe the way we know it to begin with, and

2- Given that something now exists, or equivalently has existed at some point, can it ever be that full nothingness can re-establish itself at some point.

Tackling question number 2 first - There is no credible mechanism for full dissipation of what is (at any arbitrary point in time when something happens to be).

The only way to reach full nothingness would be to dilute everything to a fully vanishing point, but then because of infinitesimal residuals all the conditions extant to create at least one element term of the Heisenberg equation would be there - thus immediately giving rise to quantum foam, which would by definition not be pure nothingness. It's too late for pure nothingness to ever exist

Which leads us to the first question: Could there ever have been full nothingness.

Pure abstract mathematics however demonstrates that the Heisenberg relationship is inescapable in any universe, including a void universe (its ensemble of conjugate attributes being a perhaps infinite collection of 2-element sets). Heisenberg will however always give rise to 'quantum foam' - i.e., to something.

Therefore the question can be equivalently reformulated as : Can it be that abstract mathematics cannot exist independently of some material support.

Or equivalently: Can it be that abstract mathematics is not fully abstract. This seems to be a logical inconsistency, and therefore it must be answered in the negative.

Therefore, going back up the chain, we can safely conclude that pure nothingness cannot possibly exist.

Our Universe may be regarded as experimental proof

My opinion is very close to Thomas Sandidge's. Because I have accepted the theory that information can not be destroyed but only hidden, I do not look for the physicality of this amazing subject of discussion. It is meaning (1) that I think it's much more interesting than (2) and (3). I am only interested in its abstract dimension, because in my view it's the only one worth a deeper exploration.

It is also fascinating to observe how captive the human mind is in the world of the constructed physical reality, since the intuitive thought pops up all the time and confuses the abstract image. We are used to see and understand things in a certain predetermined manner and the common use (and sometimes abuse) of the word (in this case, I mean the 'nothing' as a word) often reinforces the same 3D sensorial reality again and again. It is my personal view that the 3D universe is a matter of perception and not one of objective reality. The experiments of modern physics show that the main rule of the micro-universe seems to be the randomness, but it also can be another type or order, an anti-intuitive one.

I also fully agree with Simon S Attila that infinity is the main precondition to operate with and that 'nothing' co-exists in the same frame with 'infinity'. They must be complementary and not opposites.

But to turn to the main question, it must be specified what it's the meaning of 'absolute'. Because it can be understood as perfect (an abstraction, cause there is no perfection/completeness in reality) or as unconditional (as the opposite of relative/conditioned by other factors).

I've found reference to a couple of the RG topics in my mail in which I had been taking part. Reverting to the present one, I maintain that there is an absolute nothingness present in nature. It's indispensable "component" of the universe. In fact there are two kinds of nothing in the universe / nature.

1. within the universal space

2. "beyond" the universe

The first item requires a broader explanation, i.e. presentation of my understanding of the universe.

The second one seems obvious as there is no "outside" of the universe and I recently discussed both issues among others as below: https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-the-universe-will-end/answer/Andrzej-Lechowski

For a plausible resume of the primordial origin of absolute nothingness in the Universe see:

Steinman, G., Cosmology and quantized time, Speculations in Science and Technology, 19;225-233:1996.

Nothingness is a feeling of abundance. I think no one can describe in words.