Nothing

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 16 Oct 2012 12:11 pm

This just in:

.

Don Kona Woods · Post by **Don Kona Woods** » 16 Oct 2012 10:40 pm

I have been pondering the statement:

NOTHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING!

I am trying to come to some intelligent meaning of the phrase.

Could some of you, particularly deep thinkers, help me with my thinking processes here?

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 17 Oct 2012 6:34 am

Don, after pondering my most inner depths my conclusion is:
NOTHING is indeed better than NOTHING; but actually the other NOTHING, which you did not mention, is best.
...hope this clarifies everything you've ever wanted to know about NOTHING.

No thanks need __ think NOTHING of it.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 17 Oct 2012 9:57 am

Nothing being better than nothing is like trying to divide nothing by nothing.

On the one hand, dividing nothing into any number of parts will still end up with nothing, so nothing divided by anything is still nothing.

On the other hand, when you divide any number by another number, that number will get larger as the number of parts you divide it into gets smaller. In other words, the smaller the pieces the more pieces you get. Ultimately, any number divided by nothing is infinite, since you can get an infinite number of pieces of no size out of any number.

So nothing divided by nothing is at one time both nothing and infinite.

Mathematics refers to 0/0 as indeterminate, since you can prove it to be any number, yet none of them.

Roger Crawford · Post by **Roger Crawford** » 17 Oct 2012 10:28 am

Oh yeah? My nothing is bigger than your nothing!

Bob Knight · Post by **Bob Knight** » 17 Oct 2012 12:19 pm

Roger Crawford wrote:What did he mean by that???

NOTHING!!!

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 17 Oct 2012 1:34 pm

NOTHING.....

I thought you said.....NOTHING !!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 18 Oct 2012 8:56 am

NUFFINK

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 18 Oct 2012 9:11 am

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 18 Oct 2012 9:38 am

Alan Brookes wrote: NUFFINK

You're another one!

You can't get away with talk like that!
I'm going to look that up!

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 18 Oct 2012 3:17 pm

= NOTHING !

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 19 Oct 2012 9:07 am

NOWT
(A colloquial pronunciation of nought, meaning nothing.)

admin · Post by **b0b** » 19 Oct 2012 7:20 pm

an "O" thing
(original pronunciation in Shakespeare's title, "Much Ado About...")

Archie Nicol · Post by **Archie Nicol** » 20 Oct 2012 2:46 am

Bugger all?

Arch.

p.s. That is not an order!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 20 Oct 2012 10:04 am

NUNK

Don Kona Woods · Post by **Don Kona Woods** » 20 Oct 2012 10:16 am

What are these strange words (NUNK, NOWT, NUFFINK) about NOTHING all about? Could there be a subliminal NOTHING meaning to decipher?

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 20 Oct 2012 10:41 am

There's no subliminal meaning; they all mean "nothing".

I remember when I used to live in Berkeley, CA., right by the UC Berkeley campus. We had a succession of students knocking on our door in the evening handing out political pamphlets and asking for donations. One day there was a knock on the door and a student was standing there.

"What do you know about Proposition 93 ?" he asked.
"Nothink", I replied.
"What part of Birmingham do you come from ?" he responded.

It somewhat took me back that from just one word he had identified my accent exactly.

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 20 Oct 2012 11:34 am

All of these words for the word NOTHING (colloq. and other wise), but no comprehensive definition of NOTHING.
If NOTHING actually exists, let's see some.
This is turning into another Loch Ness monster.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 20 Oct 2012 5:17 pm

Rick Collins wrote:All of these words for the word NOTHING (colloq. and other wise), but no comprehensive definition of NOTHING....

If you read through the 110 pages you'll find that everything about the word "nothing" has been discussed in detail. Amongst the humour, I've gone to great lengths to explain the problem with the word. The main problem is that it's one of those nouns which in themselves don't stand, because they describe the lack of something.

What have the following words all got in common ?
COLD
DEATH
NOTHING
VACUUM
NOBODY
NO-ONE
DARKNESS
FREEDOM
INNOCENCE

They're all nouns which don't represent things, they represent the absence of something. In these cases they represent the absence of HEAT, LIFE, ANYTHING/SOMETHING, MATTER, ANYBODY/SOMEBODY, ANYONE/SOMEONE, LIGHT, CONSTRICTION and GUILT. There are many more nouns like this.

"Nothing" is the absence of anything, so when we say "nothing is better" we are not saying that something that we call "nothing" is better, we are saying that there is not a "something" which is better.

It's just a play on words in the English language. Try to translate "nothing is better" into a different language and you'll see what I mean.
(NB But don't try to translate into one of the other Germanic languages, such as Dutch/Flemish, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Afrikaans, because they're all decendants of Protogermanic and suffer the same plays on words as English.)

Most of the confusion in this topic, and probably the main cause of the continuous discussion, are the postings by members which contain insufficient punctuation, and so become ambiguous.

"I have nothing in the bag" could mean:-
"I have "nothing" in the bag," or
"I do not have anything in the bag."

Rick Collins wrote:...If NOTHING actually exists, let's see some...

This is a good example of what I'm talking about.
It's ambiguous. It could mean,
"If "nothing" actually exists, let's see some..." or
"If there isn't anything that actually exists, let's see some."
In the first case, if the word "nothing" actually exists, (which it does), let's see some what ? You can't see "nothing", other than the word on a piece of paper, because it represents the lack of anything.
In the second case, if there isn't anything that actually exists, (which there is), let's see some... but see what. If there isn't anything that actually exists, then there's nothing to see.

In fact, if there isn't anything that actually exists, why am I typing this on a nonexistent keyboard into a nonexistent internet?

The mind boggles.

BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$ $:\$

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 21 Oct 2012 11:07 am

Insufficient evidence Sir Alan Brooks.
You have not submitted any "material evidence" that your reply is funny.
And, this is the Humor Section.

Oh by the way, your extensive summation on the subject of NOTHING is thorough and right on.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 21 Oct 2012 12:59 pm

Nothing is funny.

Daniel Policarpo · Post by **Daniel Policarpo** » 21 Oct 2012 2:04 pm

nope.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 21 Oct 2012 3:21 pm

It's not funny when you're standing at a roulette wheel and the croupier announces, "Rien ne va plus", at which stage your money is in the lap of the gods, and your odds of winning are low.

Archie Nicol · Post by **Archie Nicol** » 21 Oct 2012 3:53 pm

A Steel player who can afford to visit a casino? Whatever next?!

Arch.

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 22 Oct 2012 8:50 am

b0b wrote:Nothing is funny.

It depends on what the meaning if the word is, is.
I checked with Monica on her connotation.
And, she says that in this context the verb "are" should be used, because of the implication that NOTHING would be assumed to be plural since everything in the universe is inclusive.