Is absolute 'nothing' really possible and/or coherent?

[Perhaps]

it is said that an actual infinite number of things is an absurdity

It's absurd because the words number and things imply finite, which contradicts the conception of infinite. 'Nothing' would simply appear to be the inverse of infinity - having complete bound.

It runs into problems as soon as you try to say 'if nothing existed'. Does nothing have no properties? Isn't 'having no properties' a property?

If this is how you would define nothing, then surely it existed moments before I read this thread when I wasn't thinking about it (applying properties to it). This nothing would simply be the opposite of something. Put another way, think of a red cat sitting on a porch in the sunlight.. Now, whatever you weren't thinking about is 'nothing'. It become something as soon as you think about it.

[toro]

Not all theism claims that the world was created out of nothing. Both Pantheism and Panentheism take existence as a given, i.e. "out of nothing, nothing comes."

Christians used to believe the world was eternal and had no "beginning" for that very reason. I'm guessing once the incoherence of the idea of existence "before time" becomes popularly understood they will go back to that idea.

[Reforged]

I was thinking about ex nihilo... Theist of course use this in cosmological arguments, and the more sophisticated arguments define "nothing" as having no mass, energy, or temporal qualities. They define it this way to get around the quantum mechanics examples where something comes from nothing. So "nothing" isn't just empty space. Space itself is something to theists. But is "nothing" when defined this way really possible and/or coherent? My impression of this sort of "nothing" seems impossible to imagine sort of like trying to imagine a square circle.

It is very much a hot issue debated frequently in the scientific community.
The truth is we have never experienced absolute nothing because its nigh impossible to find a space devoid of anything. No air, light, background radiation, matter, forces or fields. We can theorize or conceptualize nothing but even if we were to create this space there would be no light to see the effects.
It is essentially a moot point until we can create absolute nothing. I suppose one way to create it would be to create some kind of force bubble that pushes *everything* out. Once everything is pushed out the force that pushed everything out inside the bubble would cease but the force bubble itself would remain preventing anything else from entering. Inside this bubble would be absolute nothing but as far as I know we have nowhere near the capabilities to create such a thing. But then this would essentially be the opposite of a black hole so I suppose it must be possible.

[toro]

I was thinking about ex nihilo... Theist of course use this in cosmological arguments, and the more sophisticated arguments define "nothing" as having no mass, energy, or temporal qualities. They define it this way to get around the quantum mechanics examples where something comes from nothing. So "nothing" isn't just empty space. Space itself is something to theists. But is "nothing" when defined this way really possible and/or coherent? My impression of this sort of "nothing" seems impossible to imagine sort of like trying to imagine a square circle.

It is very much a hot issue debated frequently in the scientific community.
The truth is we have never experienced absolute nothing because its nigh impossible to find a space devoid of anything. No air, light, background radiation, matter, forces or fields. We can theorize or conceptualize nothing but even if we were to create this space there would be no light to see the effects.
It is essentially a moot point until we can create absolute nothing. I suppose one way to create it would be to create some kind of force bubble that pushes *everything* out. Once everything is pushed out the force that pushed everything out inside the bubble would cease but the force bubble itself would remain preventing anything else from entering. Inside this bubble would be absolute nothing but as far as I know we have nowhere near the capabilities to create such a thing. But then this would essentially be the opposite of a black hole so I suppose it must be possible.

If that is "nothing", then nothing would just be an enclosed vacuum, which has matter field oscillations inside of it. They just cancel one another out, but on a quantum sale create oscillations determined by the available wavelength defined by the boundary. It wouldn't be nothing, it would be the vacuum state. You can measure the effect by measuring the effective pressure on the boundary you are creating.

You can't really stop the oscillations from occurring insofar as I know. Can you?

Maybe a nice definition would be a vacuum region of a volume defined by lengths smaller than the Planck length. There the region is going to be too small for any such oscillations to occur. I'd have to think about it some more but that may just mean nothing literally is undefinable (it is literally too small to physically exist by some theories). Which would
Mean that nothing doesn't just mean not existing. Nothing doesn't physically exist.

[Violet]

What is beyond everything?

Nothing.

Question answered.

[TheJackel]

If nothing existed, not even nothing would exist. Nothing can not by definition be a literal existing person, place, object, substance, or thing. The term is just a place card for the following:

1. What you expect to be there but isn't
2. A starting point (zero point energy), (ground zero)
3. A math equation to express the lack of something, or a neutral state: A car parked has a zero velocity and thus is traveling zero mph relative to Earth or you.
4. Denotes the lack of the existence of something in question. : You don't really have anything to offer me

But, nothing in the literal context is a logical fallacy. The pen on my desk proves that nothing doesn't exist. Me being here proves nothing doesn't exist. Even if existence were a static blank page of pure void it still couldn't ever literally be "nothing".. It would be the closest thing to nothing, but nothing could never become a literal reality. And for you immaterialists / theists, this discussion also tells you why immateriality is a logical fallacy. Yep, you can't exist and be made of nothing..

[Violet]

If nothing existed, not even nothing would exist.

If nothing existed...

Stop. You have just proposed a hypothesis whereby nothing exists. Therefore: nothing exists.

If nothing exists... it does.

Amusing aside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Js0EGGbs0

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

If nothing existed, not even nothing would exist.

If nothing existed...

Stop. You have just proposed a hypothesis whereby nothing exists. Therefore: nothing exists.

If nothing exists... it does.

Amusing aside

Wow. Didn't know Disney cartoons ever got that deep.

[Violet]

Wow. Didn't know Disney cartoons ever got that deep.

Winne the Pooh will be special in my heart forever

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Wow. Didn't know Disney cartoons ever got that deep.

Winne the Pooh will be special in my heart forever

I grew up on VeggieTales which is literally the opposite of that Pooh scene.