Can Nothingness Exist ?

If you are defining 'nothingness' as simply the absece of anything observable in the universe, then there are HUGE pockets of nothingness between the galactic superclusters and superstructures. If you mean the absence of space and time itself, then it becomes more tricky. TRUE nothingness cannot be emperically real. I am of the school of thought which states that things are only 'real' if there are observers to witness them or their effects. For example, we may find out some day that there are many alternate universes parallel to our own but until we learn for sure that they have to be there, they do not exist. From a practical standpoint, nothingness will eventually exist everywhere - after the heat death of the universe when nothing changes any more and no particles are able to interact with each other. Althought time will technically still pass, there will be no way to determine that it is passing. So that would be a case of "real nothingness" for all practical purposes.

No, it is essentially a human concept, rather than something that actually exists, if a point can be observed then it is not nothing, if it cannot be observed, then it can't possibly be in the universe.

That's why it's funny when theists criticise the big bang by stating "something can't come from nothing" implying that there was ever a period when nothing existed, which there is no evidence for, in fact existence and the universe may prove that nothing actually cannot exist..

when I was about ten years old I started reading Genesis and when I came to the fact that there was a void and I tried to imagine a void would it be endless space or compressed and I could imagine neither so I came to the conclusion there had to be something and that things always existed and time and space were infinite. A while ago someone told me that according to the Big Bang theory time actually began and there was nothing. But thinking about that possibility I decide there had to be energy if energy can neither be created or destroyed then to fuel the Big Bang there would have to be energy in existence. But thee is an alternative theory to the Big Bang that I read about where my early musings are accepted that things always were and therefore time and space are infinite. The Big Bang theory is more in tune with Genesis.

No, nothingness cannot be a state of existence. There can either be existence in which things exist, or existence that contains no things, but existence - being a "thing" in which other things can exist - must always exist. And, energy is an intrinsic part of existence. The laws of thermodynamics (which have never been discredited) tell us that in a closed system, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. Existence is a closed system because nothing can exist outside of existence. Therefore energy, like existence itself, must be eternal.

You cannot "traverse the nothingness". Space is a thing. Empty space is not nothing because space is defined as that which exists between objects. No objects, no space/time. You can't go back to zero without a ruler.

I like your concept of nothing becoming something the moment anything interacts with it..... but that anything itself came from where..... that still remains a question mark.

Nothingness probably does not exist at all, but gets a subjective reality the moment we imagine it.... nothingness could be experienced like we experience our own imagination, not passing through any of our 5 physical senses but directly arising in our brain through an imagination.

Who knows

Our concept of "something" requires space and time for the "something" to exist in

reversing this - our concept of "nothing" is "no time" and "no space" cos we cannot conceive of how anything could exist without both

but just cos we cant conceive of such an existence dont prove there cant be one, just we have no idea how it could "exist"

(all or science is founded on a universe where both exist, so its useless in proving that there cant be an existence where neither exist)

Existence requires being.

Without being there is no existence.

Since being is known to exist (cogito ergo sum), then there cannot be nothing in existence.

One wonders, can being cease to exist? Being is existence. There is no agent behind existence, reality is One whole image.

Space is part of the Universe. How can you have anything that takes up space without having space? I call that "nothingness".

Everytime nothingness is, it is filled with something