What is the opposite of 'nothing'?

[edward_george]

There is no “opposite” of nothing. That’s like asking what the opposite of a square triangle is. It’s a nonsensical question, because nothing by definition doesn’t exist, so how could there be an “opposite” of it?

To follow up on this somewhat, that’s because “nothing” is a relative term, just like “cold” to denote the absence of heat or “dark” to denote the absence of light. Nothingness is something we can only speak about in relation to some presence of something that is or ought to be. This is why we speak of evil as being a lack of goodness–it is a lack of a due perfection. Just the same, we cannot speak of nothing independently existing from a good, from something with being. If I go to the refrigerator looking for a drink, and someone asks if there is a drink there, and I say “no, nothing!” this does not necessarily mean there is absolutely nothing in the refrigerator; there is still moisture, air, light, shelves, perhaps some other things which are not drinks if I’m not splitting hairs. But I can only speak of nothing in relation to something that is, was, or ought to be there.

-ACEGC

 

[J_Peterson]

It depends what you mean by opposite.

If you mean the converse then the opposite of nothing is everything.
If you mean the negation, then the opposite of nothing is something.

I’m assuming you mean the converse because you seem to be talking about the empty set. If this is the case the using negative numbers as examples is not a good idea since the converse of 7 is (-infinity, 6] & 8, infinity) (assuming we are dealing with integers).

ETA: Doh! I mean complement, not converse!

 

[J_Peterson]

Isn’t -1 the opposite of 1??

Isn’t infinity the opposite of zero (since both are ) technically not numbers?

0 is definitely a number. It’s a very important number since its the additive identity.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Would the opposite of ‘nothing’ be ‘something’ or ‘everything’?

In favour of the second option, it seems like ‘everything’ is on the opposite end of the scale of ‘quantity of thing-ness’.

Yet, on the other hand, if using the term in normal speech, it would seem that ‘something’ would be more likely to be used to express the opposite case (“There’s something”, in opposition to “there’s nothing.”)

A related question is that of the opposite of ‘zero’. Now, if the opposite of a number is its negative (e.g. the oposite of 4 is -4), then, does it follow that the opposite of 0 is -0 (i.e. 0). Or, is “infinity” the opposite of “zero”?

From the point of view of logic I would understand “opposite” to be either the contradictory or contrary statements.

The contradictory statement to “there is nothing” is “there is something.”
The contrary is “there is everything.”

 

[Qoeleth]

0 is definitely a number. It’s a very important number since its the additive identity.

So, if I said, “I own a number of Italian sports cars” (yeah- ZERO), I would not be lying? Chortle.

So, if zero is a number, the opposite is indeed -0?

 

[Qoeleth]

It depends what you mean by opposite.

If you mean the converse then the opposite of nothing is everything.
If you mean the negation, then the opposite of nothing is something.

I’m assuming you mean the converse because you seem to be talking about the empty set. If this is the case the using negative numbers as examples is not a good idea since the converse of 7 is (-infinity, 6] & [8, infinity) (assuming we are dealing with integers).

ETA: Doh! I mean complement, not converse!

So- is ‘opposition’ simply a semantic construction- is there no ‘real opposite’, but simple opposition (as either converse or negation) in a linguistic sense?
[/quote]

 

[J_Peterson]

So- is ‘opposition’ simply a semantic construction- is there no ‘real opposite’, but simple opposition (as either converse or negation) in a linguistic sense?

Hmm, I’m not really sure. I guess it’s not something with a mathmatically precise definition. For instance, what would the opposite of “cat” be? I guess you could say “not-cat” but then that would mean that a ball is the opposite of a cat which seems silly. Maybe it’s something that can only apply to extremes like the opposite of a theist is an atheist, but then it would seem that a pantheist doesn’t have an opposite.

With the original question I think in tems of set theory with nothing being the empty set and everything being the universal set, they would be opposites I think. But then as I type that I remember that the empty set is a subset of the universal set which means that nothing is a part of everything so maybe they aren’t opposites.

 

[levinas12]

Would the opposite of ‘nothing’ be ‘something’ or ‘everything’?

In favour of the second option, it seems like ‘everything’ is on the opposite end of the scale of ‘quantity of thing-ness’.

Yet, on the other hand, if using the term in normal speech, it would seem that ‘something’ would be more likely to be used to express the opposite case (“There’s something”, in opposition to “there’s nothing.”)

A related question is that of the opposite of ‘zero’. Now, if the opposite of a number is its negative (e.g. the oposite of 4 is -4), then, does it follow that the opposite of 0 is -0 (i.e. 0). Or, is “infinity” the opposite of “zero”?

You are asking good questions. “0” is one of my favorite numbers because it figured in Euler’s argument against negative numbers. If a positive number divided by “0” results in infinity, then a positive number divided by a negative number (which is less than “0”) would result in something more than infinity. For more on this, see Keith Devlin, The Golden Age of Mathematics.

On an entirely different note, Heidegger was really big on nothing, as in no-thing. The world, Being, are no-things. But even though they are not things, they have to be reckon with.

 

[levinas12]

For more on this, see Keith Devlin, The Golden Age of Mathematics.

Memory burp.

It’s Keith Devlin, Mathematics: The New Golden Age.

 

[levinas12]

… Euler’s argument against negative numbers …

CORRECTION:

According to Devlin, Euler didn’t reject negative numbers, but accepted them. However, he still believed that, because a/0=infinity, then if we divide “a” by a number less than 0, the result must be greater than infinity. See Devlin, Mathematics: The New Golden Age, p. 60 (1988 edition).

Is this really true about Euler? Devlin is usually reliable.

More remarkably, Devlin goes on to say that Euler believed that negative numbers themselves were greater than infinity (again p. 60).

Maybe we need to look at the revised edition of Devlin’s book (1999).

 

[levinas12]

CORRECTION:

According to Devlin, Euler didn’t reject negative numbers, but accepted them. However, he still believed that, because a/0=infinity, then if we divide “a” by a number less than 0, the result must be greater than infinity. See Devlin, Mathematics: The New Golden Age, p. 60 (1988 edition).

Is this really true about Euler? Devlin is usually reliable.

More remarkably, Devlin goes on to say that Euler believed that negative numbers themselves were greater than infinity (again p. 60).

Maybe we need to look at the revised edition of Devlin’s book (1999).

Maybe the reasoning goes something like this.

3/-1 = more than infinity
3/-1 = -3
-3 is more than infinity
but then, according to the logic of division, the two numbers (-1 and -3), each more than infinity, when multiplied together, produce a finite number, 3.

Yikes