And i see fallacies on this site because of it.
In fact, you could use it only when you have another way to say what you want to say, if you can’t, it mean you are using "nothing" in you sentence in the same way you would use "something", and do a mistake of reasoning.
By example:
"There is nothing" mean "it is false that there is something".
Here it is ok, because it is just a way to be more short, but really it is also a abuse of language.
Here is how it is possible to draw a absurd conclusion from it:
For whatever X "There is X" implies "There is something"
Then
"There is nothing" implies "There is something"
Here the conclusion is so absurd, that you directly see the mistake, but there are much more subtle errors because of it.
In fact, math is right on it, because math never give a name to "nothing".
"0" is not nothing, it is a particular number, that can be used to represent the quantity of a kind of thing, when this kind of thing is absent.
What would be more near of "nothing", is the empty set {} or ∅.
But it is still not "nothing", it is a set, what is "nothing", is what contains the set, and like you could see, there is no name for it.
The interesting thing, is that,"for whatever x∈∅, P(x) is true." (∀ x∈ ∅, P(x))
You could see that if you begin to think you could give a name to "nothing", that you could assign a variable to nothing, then this "nothing", or this "x", will have all the properties you could imagine, what is absurd.
In fact, "(∀ x∈ ∅, P(x))" is true, because x is never used, x never become "nothing", it is true because "(∃ x∈∅)" is false.
But if you begin something by saying : "let x=nothing, x is…" then your demonstration is false.
It mean, you can’t speak about "what is nothing", it is obvious, because "nothing" is not something. (yes, i did the mistake just after stating the general rule, you could see how it is misleading)
It is always a abuse to speak about "nothing", and this abuse is only "ok" when you could say what you want in another way.
See some examples of fallacies about that:
Here the first step is a mistake "nothing have no property" is meaningless, you can’t translate that by the negation of another sentence, you can’t say it without using "nothing", like "something".Nothing have no property, then nothing don’t exists, then there is something
Here it is subtle, because you could translate "it mean that there was nothing before it" by "it is false that there was a "before it"".The universe is all things, then if the universe had a beginning, it mean that there was nothing before it.
But then, it mean you get something from nothing, what is impossible, then the universe have no beginning
But to put it in this way, incites to think about "nothing", like "a empty thing".
And then the true mistake appear "But then, it mean you get something from nothing", this sentence is meaningless, and like you could see, you can’t translate this sentence without using "nothing". (it is not false, it is really meaningless)
If the universe have a beginning, then there is no "before this beginning".
And it also follow that there is no creation, because to have creation, you need a before the creation exists, and a after the creation exists.
Here i am not saying it is possible to have "no before", nor that it could make sense. (i don’t know about it).
What i am saying, is how the use of "nothing", is misleading and lead to meaningless sentences.
Then please, if you do some strange reasoning containing the word "nothing", try to translate it without using the word, if you can’t, you have great chance that you are wrong.
