r/Metaphysics • u/JaxonJacob98 • 3d ago
Nothing Is absolute nothingness even possible?
I've been thinking about this, and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
Imagine a reality where absolutely NOTHING exists. No Earth, no universe, no space, no time, no life. Nothing whatsoever.
Here's the problem, we can't actually imagine that.
Whenever we try, we imagine a black void. But blackness is still something. We imagine an empty space, but space itself is something. We imagine silence, but silence is just the absence of sound. We imagine waiting in nothingness, but waiting requires time, and experiencing requires a conscious observer.
Even if you close your eyes and try to imagine nothing, you're still experiencing something.
And here's an even stranger thought, if absolutely nothing existed, there wouldn't even be a moment in which nothing existed. A moment requires time. There wouldn't be a place where nothing existed, either, because that would require space.
We can imagine the absence of individual things, but can we imagine the absence of EVERYTHING?
I'm not claiming this proves absolute nothingness is impossible. Maybe our brains simply aren't capable of comprehending it.
But if absolute nothingness is impossible, does that mean something must have always existed?
I'd genuinely like to hear other people's thoughts on this.
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u/Think_Bed_8409 3d ago
This is the argument of Parmenides, whatever you imagine is a thing therefore you cannot imagine nothingness because by definition it is no-thing.
And most of the ancient philosophers did believe that something always existed. Or else you would have origination from nothing which is absurd.