>This is a message to no one about nothing. As such it is expected that it will receive absolutely no replies with absolutely nothing in them.

Nothing

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This article is about "nothing" in the abstract sense. For other uses, see Nothing (disambiguation).
"None" redirects here. For other uses, see None (disambiguation).
Nothing is commonly understood as the lack or absence of anything at all. Colloquially, the term is often used to indicate the lack of anything relevant or significant, or to describe a particularly unimpressive thing, event, or object.

Contents [hide]
1 Language and logic
2 Philosophy
3 Science
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 References



[edit] Language and logic
Grammatically, the word "nothing" is a noun, which suggests that it refers to something. This can lead to confusion and forms the basis for a number of jokes. The simplest meaning is: no thing. So if "Nothing" is said to be in a particular place, have a particular quality, then it is meant that "no thing" is there, or has this or that quality. Nothing simply sounds better, and is simpler than no thing. And in any case, the word "naught" also has this same meaning. Its basic uses can often be restated to avoid this appearance: "There is nothing in the basement" can be restated as "There is not one thing in the basement" or "Everything is not in the basement" (which can imply that there is any quantity short of 'everything' in the basement.) "Nothing is missing" can be restated as "everything is present". Conversely, many fallacious conclusions follow from treating "nothing" as a noun. In this case, "nothing" would not be a correct statement, scientifically speaking, as air can be referred to as "something."

Modern logic made it possible to articulate these points coherently as intended, and many philosophers hold that the word "nothing" does not function as a noun: there is not any object it refers to. There are still various opposing views, though: that, for example, our understanding of the world rests essentially on noticing absences and lacks as well as presences, and that "nothing" and related words serve to indicate these.


[edit] Philosophy
The concept of 'nothing' has been studied throughout history by philosophers and theologians; many have found that careful consideration of the notion can easily lead to the logical fallacy of reification. (If one does not believe that nothing is no thing.) However, many of the existentialist and postmodern philosophers and writers would argue that Nothing is actually the lack or absence of something, rather than of anything.[citation needed]

The understanding of 'nothing' varies widely between cultures, especially between Western and Eastern cultures and philosophical traditions. For instance, Shunyata (emptiness), unlike "nothingness", is considered a state of mind in some forms of Buddhism (see Nirvana, mu, and Bodhi. See also soku hi in Kyoto school). Achieving 'nothing' as a state of mind in this tradition allows someone to be totally 'focused' (in the Western sense of the word) on a thought or activity at a level of intensity they would not be able to achieve if they were 'consciously' thinking. The classic example of this is an archer drawing a bow, attempting to erase their mind as a way to better focus on the shot. Existentialism and Martin Heidegger have brought these two understandings closer together.[citation needed]


[edit] Science
In mathematics, nothing does not have a technical meaning. It could be said that a set contains "nothing" if and only if it is the empty set, in which case its cardinality (or size) is zero. In other words, the word "nothing" is an informal term for an empty set. However, since two minus two is also called nothing, it could also refer to the number zero.

In physics, the word nothing is not used in any technical sense. A region of space is called a vacuum if it does not contain any matter. But it can contain physical fields. In fact, it is practically impossible to construct a region of space which contains no matter or fields, since gravity cannot be blocked and all objects at a non-zero temperature radiate electromagnetically. However, supposing such a region existed, it would still not be "nothing", since it has properties and a measurable existence as part of the quantum-mechanical vacuum.

In computing, "Nothing" (VB.Net), or "null" (Java, C#, others), can be a keyword used to represent an unassigned variable, or a pointer that does not point to any particular memory address, or a reference that does not refer to an extant object. Similarly, Null is used in SQL as a symbolic representation of the absence of data. This meta-data usage of "null" is different from the unprintable ASCII and unicode null character, which has a numerical value of zero — although it is different from the ASCII character for zero ("0"). The ASCII blank character (" ") is not the same as an empty string (""), which is itself sometimes confused with the null pointer in languages such as C. Most forms of assembly language have a no-operation (nop) instruction (often with a numerical value of zero) — that is, a command to do nothing, which can prove useful for blanking out areas of problem code.


[edit] See also
Blank
Empty set
Existentialism
Negative theology
Nihilism
No
Nobody
NOP
Nowhere
Null
Null graph
Seinfeld
Shunyata
Vacuous truth
Vacuum
Void
Zero

[edit] Further reading
The Book of Nothing, John D Barrow
Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre
The Nothing That Is, Robert Kaplan
In Search of a Cyclops, Fredrick Schermer
Zero, Charles Seife
The Hole in the Universe K. C. Kole
Church Dogmatics III/3, pp. 389-368, Karl Barth

[edit] References
This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing"
Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since May 2007 | Articles lacking sources from July 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Nothing | Philosophical terminology | Perception | Ontology | Value




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We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility -- boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom.

Charles S. Peirce, "Logic of Events" (1898)



Nothing (2003)
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Register or login to rate this title User Rating: 6.4/10 (1,666 votes)
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Overview
Director:Vincenzo Natali

Writers:Vincenzo Natali (story) &
Andrew Miller (story) ...
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Release Date:29 July 2004 (Hungary) more
Genre:Comedy / Fantasy / Mystery / Sci-Fi more
Tagline:What if you wished everyone - and everything - would just go away!
Plot Synopsis:View full synopsis. (warning! may contain spoilers)
Plot Keywords:Surreal / Friendship / Based On Supposedly True Story / Confrontation / Video Game more
Awards:2 wins & 3 nominations more
User Comments:Nice "idea" movie, but don't expect too much of it more

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Cast (Credited cast)

David Hewlett ... Dave
Andrew Miller ... Andrew
Gordon Pinsent ... Man In Suit

Marie-Josée Croze ... Sara
Andrew Lowery ... Crawford
Elana Shilling ... Little Girl

Soo Garay ... Little Girl's Mother
Martin Roach ... Co-worker

Angelo Tsarouchas ... Foreman
Rick Parker ... Mounted Police Officer
Maurice Dean Wint ... Narrator
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Create a character page for: DaveAndrewMan In SuitSaraCrawfordLittle GirlLittle Girl's MotherCo-workerForemanMounted Police OfficerNarrator-----------more...

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Additional Details
MPAA:Rated R for language.
Parents Guide:Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:Canada:90 min (Toronto International Film Festival)
Country:Canada
Language:English
Color:Color
Aspect Ratio:2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:Dolby Digital
Certification:France:Unrated / Portugal:M/12 / USA:R / Canada:14A / Germany:12
Filming Locations:Toronto, Ontario, Canada
MOVIEmeter: 4% since last week why?
Company:49th Parallel Productions more

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Fun Stuff
Goofs:Miscellaneous: When they venture out into the nothingness and the first guy falls, the camera pans up and you can see where the glass is because as it comes up from "under ground" his feet are kind of broken. more
Quotes:Andrew: Hey!
Dave: Oh, sorry.
Andrew: You did that on purpose!
Dave: What do you mean?
Andrew: I was just about to beat you for the first time, and you shut off the game!
Dave: No I didn't.
Andrew: Yes you did!
Dave: Well, it was an accident.
Andrew: I - I can't believe this! I was gonna win!
Dave: Fine, you want to play again?
[...]
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Movie Connections:Features "Angela Anaconda" (1999) more

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User Comments (Comment on this title)
13 out of 16 people found the following comment useful:-
Nice "idea" movie, but don't expect too much of it, 29 November 2005


Author: baba44713 from Zambia

When it comes to IMDb comments for this movie we have a Matrix 3 situation - either folks love it and praise it to heaven or they venomously loathe it.

If I want to be objective I will say that this is a..well.. interesting movie. One of those "what if" movies where the creator has a weird idea and than wraps a movie around it. In "Cube" it was "What if a bunch of different people would be put in a strange cube with all sorts of traps inside it." In "Nothing" it is much simpler - "What if two guys suddenly found themselves in nothing - in a completely literal meaning of the word."

The idea is interesting and unusual and very attractive in some ways. You must be at least interested in questions like "How does this 'nothing'look like" or "How will they get out of it, if at all?". In other words, with idea like that you can hardly go wrong, can you?

Well, as a matter of fact, you kind of can. The biggest issue with this movie is how you (the viewer) will react to the tone of the movie and (even more important) how you'll react to the characters. The director chose a comedic, over-the-top approach, with lots of close-ups, shouting, overacting and quite a bit of Tim Burtonness thrown into it. If you accept this tone, you'll have fun and probably love it. If the two guys screaming at each other start getting on your nerves the movie will become a chore, since there is (literally) nothing else to occupy your attention.

For me it was a bit of both. At times I was amused, at times bored, at times extremely irritated by the unorthodox way the characters reacted to the situation they found themselves in. All in all I've found it to be an interesting experience, but nothing to get too excited about. Little flick to pass the time. If you like movies that are a bit off, or like to see something different than rent this. If you keep your expectations reasonably low, you'll probably like it. In the end, I've found myself wandering what if the characters were more down-to-earth, more believable (as were those poor people stuck in a Cube)? I think THEN this could be a truly great movie.

Well in any case, it's waaay better than that godawful "Hypercube".

6/10

P.S. I simply have to put a note of this - the DVD edition shamelessly tries to promote this as a horror movie. The cover shows a screaming mouth, a terrified eye and a ghastly hand with see-through blood/veins in it. It was even situated at the horror shelf at my DVD rental store and conveniently didn't have a genre label on it. While I understand this is done to up the sales a bit it is in my opinion totally unacceptable and will probably result in bad reputation for this movie. Many will rent/buy it believing they will see a "Cube"-like horror/mystery movie and then be completely put off by the light tone and silliness of the whole thing. God, I hate false advertising. Shame on you, distributors.

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Message Boards
Discuss this title with other users on IMDb message board for Nothing (2003) Recent Posts (updated daily) User
Is it ever coming out of R2 DVD? darkstar_99
so did anyone else watch after the credits? exaybachay01
That friggin' song. Smurfy-2
A really cool movie idea but a crappy execution. mitchij2004
horror shot and chaser artistoartist
Stan the turtle the_office_addict
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