How to denote the idea of nothingness in formal terms?

Question

I was thinking about the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" , and have read about some theories that existence is the case because non-existence is logically impossible

So, I devised a logical proof that shows nothingness is impossible, but only if we can formally denote nothingness by : "There exists x, so that for all y , y is not identical to x".

(∃x)(∀y)(y≠x)

Which violates the law of identity, therefore : nothingness is logically impossible. (there is no x that is not identical to all y)

My question : are there any references that try to denote "nothingness" in formal terms?

Answer 1

There's some recent formal work by Graham Priest on this topic, which can be found in his monograph One. Oxford 2016, p.99ff.

Priest works in a non-standard mereology, where parthood is a non-well-founded preorder. His basic idea is to to formalize nothingness as the fusion of the empty set, this fusion being denoted by the constant n. So, within this formal picture, nothingness is what you get when you take the sum of no things whatsoever.

To get his mereological theory with nothingness added going Priest has to add axioms governing the behavior of the constant n, such as ~ x < n and ~ n < x (no thing is a proper part of nothing and nothing is not a proper part of anything). Priest also gives algebraic models of this theory using Boolean algebras.

Answer 2

This formulation: (∃x)(∀y)(y≠x) is not terrible but...it works. Yet, it has some issues:

1. It is a statement about Nothingness, not Nothingness itself. To write Nothingness you need to write : Nothingness is such that (∀y in Existence)(y ≠ Nothingness). Or (Nothingness = x) such that (∀y in Existence)(y≠x). Or more compactly: (Nothingness = x) (∀y)(y≠x). Your formulation starts with (∃x), hence, not only it defines Nothingness, it also states that Nothingness does exist! Is this what you want ?
2. Does Nothingness exist ? It depends on what you mean by "existence". Here is the interpretation in Phenomenology:

a- It is what we do not know at all. It is not an empty and infinite space but the answer to the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?". We say that Nothingness is the negation of Being or an existence devoid of essence BUT NOT the negation of existence. It appears to the Consciousness as one asks the question and every Consciousness guaranties the existence of its object, hence Nothingness does exist.

b- The non-Existent becomes this that escapes the Consciousness because there does not exist anything that can escape the Consciousness, if there were a such thing then too late for I have just captured it!!

Given its importance, it is remarkably strange that no formal definition is given by logicians or even philosophers to the concept of Nothingness.

Answer 3

Nothingness had to exist, and it had to exist beyond our universe. Nothingness is a kind of space, but it is very important to understand that it is different from our 3D physical space. The universe must have begun from nothingness and it must be expanding into nothingness. If the universe contracted or travelled, it would do so into nothingness.

Imagining a simple scenario with 2 universes expanding into nothingness, with their boundaries eventually coming to touch each other, then the nothingness that was initially in between them would have had to contract. Thus, nothingness, as a special kind of space may have properties, like size, or being 3-dimensional, just like normal space. Therefore, nothingness is not exactly nothing. Something also important to note is that nothingness is not stable. It is constantly producing positive and negative virtual particles, which annihilate each other continuously. The book A Universe from Nothing by Dr Krauss explains nothingness in detail but it doesn't explain nothingness as a special case of something.