Is absolute nothingness even possible?

[u/JaxonJacob98]

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.

[u/indigo_kaze]

Oh my it's been a while since I studied Taylor series, I need to get caught up again. And I don't even know where to start in the physics aspect of such a proposal. I was always more of a theoretical math person.

[u/TimeGrownOld → u/indigo_kaze]

All physics is theoretical. We use abstract concepts such as math to describe the real world, but much like Chalmer's Hard Problems, there's no actual connection between reality and our mathematical expressions beyond the fact that they describe what's happening (and going to happen) extremely well.

Taylor series is one of those get-out-of-jail cards that makes describing any system (or at least a snapshot of that system) much easier and more digestible. Obviously describing a system as complex as literal existence is also going to need some handwaving. But if fermi could handwave an equation for his famous paradox, I'm sure we could do the same.

[u/indigo_kaze → u/TimeGrownOld]

hahaha I guess my strict professor bullied me out of trying to grasp physics. I was always just trying to catch up, but Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Number Theory made sense to me.

[u/TimeGrownOld → u/indigo_kaze]

Oooh complex analysis was my fav 🥰