What Is The Opposite Of Nothing?

A thing which some think about, but rarely, and not for long. The question "What is the opposite of nothing?". For a long time the answer eluded me.

So you may immediately think the answer is "everything". Mathematically, if you define zero as nothing and infinity as everything, then it is accepted that the reciprocals of the values are approaching the other. So this suggests that "everything" is just out of scalar reach of "nothing", and vice versa. If they can never be the other, then they would be opposites then right? No matter happens, a sane person cannot be insane, because if they were then they wouldn't be sane, they would be insane, and thus they would be opposites. The case holds with "everything" and "nothing".

But at the same time you may be arguing that that doesn't necessarily make them opposites, that they could merely be such different concepts that they couldn't become each other, and instead claim that the opposite of "nothing" is "something". If you don't have something, then you would be said to have nothing. And if you didn't have nothing, then you certainly must have something. This is certainly true and shows they are opposites. Think of light and dark. They are opposites are they not? If you don't have light then it must be dark, if it is not dark then there must be light.

But then again, could it be anything? One who argues that the opposite of "nothing" is clearly "anything". "Anything" exists, and so it opposes the nonexistence of "nothing". So if you don't want anything, you want nothing. If you don't want nothing, then you want anything.

Ah, but again another argument comes. The opposite is like a positive and negative numbers. They add up to zero. But they are opposites. Imagine pushing and pulling. Those actions are opposite. Pushing being the positive force and pulling the negative force. If you were to push and pull at the same time what would happen? You'd be doing nothing, the pushing and pulling cancels each other out, thus proving they are opposites. So what could be added to "nothing" to make "nothing"? "Nothing" of course, and so "nothing" is the opposite of "nothing". It is its own opposite.

So now four different things have been shown to be opposite of nothing. But how? They can't all be the opposite of "nothing" can they? They can. Opposites are usually similar in most ways and are just completely different along one dimension of meaning. From this definition one can see that the number of opposites to "nothing" is equivalent to the number of dimensions of meaning it can take on. "Everything" is its opposite on the dimension of quantity. You could imagine it being a graded scale with "nothing" on one end and "everything" on the other. This scale would be the dimension of quantity. "Something" would be on the scale of existence, which seems binary. That is to say, there doesn't seem to be anything in between existence and nonexistence. So really the opposite of "nothing" in this dimension is really "a thing". You will also note that "anything" also seems to to be an opposite on this dimension of existence. "Anything" and "Something" are both "A thing"; they are just variances in the dimension of exactness.

The more puzzling one is the last, "nothing" being its own opposite. How can this be? For one, it is neutral. It is neither positive nor negative and literally takes on the definition of being the center of opposition. So if it is a dot, what is between itself and "nothing"? Nothing is, therefore "nothing" is the opposite. In the same way you could visualize it as a scale. On one end is nothing, and on the other nothing. And since nothing is between nothing and nothing, the entire thing is just one thing, nothing.

I hope this has either sparked your interest or brain hurt you so bad it sparks the interests of thousands more. I also hope this has been enlightening, thank you for reading!