What Is Nothing?

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ย. 2021
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ความคิดเห็น • 3K

  • @obmubswag2087
    @obmubswag2087 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3351

    Joe is evolving into his Vsauce form

  • @livvieblair9506
    @livvieblair9506 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1099

    "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it". - Mark Twain.

    • @linhho8113
      @linhho8113 2 ปีที่แล้ว +94

      "I can bear darkness unless i have seen light" - Some Interlectual
      sorry for my bad English

    • @patricknelson
      @patricknelson 2 ปีที่แล้ว +37

      Yeah?! Well… _now_ what does he think?

    • @gotentk4
      @gotentk4 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Blah blah

    • @magicpotato1580
      @magicpotato1580 2 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Amogus

    • @rondoggish
      @rondoggish 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Greatest quote in all of human history

  • @jaqihegland6232
    @jaqihegland6232 ปีที่แล้ว +109

    So if I say I learned nothing today, that doesn't mean a lack of learning. Today I learned a lot about nothing. Very educational.

    • @neelroy2918
      @neelroy2918 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      Or nothing :|

  • @edweefication
    @edweefication 2 ปีที่แล้ว +233

    What i love so much about this channel is, albeit very limited, they involve critical and philosopical thinking in almost every video. It sparks our curiosity and thus, our interest.

    • @EverythingButSorted
      @EverythingButSorted 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Me too. Been watching almost every video for years. Quality content draws back in every time. 👍

    • @raisa_cherry33
      @raisa_cherry33 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      On point dear 😍❤❤ indeed the best!

    • @jericoba
      @jericoba 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Well said.

  • @ShortHax
    @ShortHax 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2727

    In the parallel nothing universe: “What is something?”

  • @Ngamotu83
    @Ngamotu83 2 ปีที่แล้ว +969

    I had this exact discussion in my physics class at school. The teacher had shown us a vacuum tube made of glass, explaining there was nothing in there. However, one other student and myself insisted there had to be something in the tube, as light was clearly passing through it, and light is not nothing.

    • @handzofgod
      @handzofgod 2 ปีที่แล้ว +65

      Exactly what I was thinking

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 ปีที่แล้ว +116

      if i said that the teacher would probably say thats not the point or something

    • @werrkowalski2985
      @werrkowalski2985 2 ปีที่แล้ว +76

      What we refer to as "nothing" depends on context, obviously now we know that there isn't even such thing as absolute nothing in the physical world, there is always a field. So nobody really refers to absolute nothing when talking about something physical, it would make no sense.

    • @jimc.goodfellas226
      @jimc.goodfellas226 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      You sure showed that teacher who's boss

    • @DavidBeckwitt
      @DavidBeckwitt 2 ปีที่แล้ว +38

      @@jimc.goodfellas226 real cringe

  • @gemaster14
    @gemaster14 ปีที่แล้ว +136

    This reminds me of when my parents argued about nothing. One time when I was a kid, during a road trip in which my little sister and I became tired and cranky and bickered near nonstop, my parents tried to teach us a lesson about how silly our arguments were and how frustrating they were to listen to, by interrupting us to have a logical argument about literal nothing. My dad argued that nothing as the absence of something made nothing something, and my mom argued that something couldn’t be nothing because by its definition nothing is where there is not something. In a case with of cookies, by eating all your cookies, you had no or nothing cookies left, but if you ate all your cookies then you also did not have cookies. Unfortunately the lesson about petty arguments my parents were trying to teach soared over my and my sister’s head. We thought the whole performance to be hilarious and the concept of debating literal nothing even more hilarious and spent the rest of the drive engaging in our own increasingly silly and illogical argument about the meaning of nothing and giggling about it. However, the memory of that event stuck with me. When I saw the title of this video, I immediately thought of that road trip and my parents’ argument about nothing. I loved this video and shared it with my sister and my parents, and we enjoyed reminiscing about that long ago silly argument and learning more about nothing. Thank you for giving my family this enjoyable reminder. 😄

    • @Lunarmemory
      @Lunarmemory ปีที่แล้ว +12

      That sounds like some A+ parenting though

    • @sagnikmajumder3957
      @sagnikmajumder3957 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Hello

    • @flyingproofficial
      @flyingproofficial 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      Wish my parents debated about stuff like this my father is never at home my mom is doing chores my sister is to small to understand anything I say actually anyone in my family doesn't understand what I say and Joe you me all of us are turning into a sauce served in v shape

    • @meesalikeu
      @meesalikeu 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

      i got nothing out of that 😂🎉

  • @Phailnaught
    @Phailnaught 2 ปีที่แล้ว +81

    The whole time I could only think of, "There's literally EVERYTHING in space, Morty!"

    • @dallaselgin2636
      @dallaselgin2636 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Watch a different show

    • @jazz6897
      @jazz6897 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      th-cam.com/video/TYR3uCgp6nI/w-d-xo.html

    • @Isntlifefunny
      @Isntlifefunny 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@dallaselgin2636 No, I don't think I will.

  • @JoseAyapan
    @JoseAyapan 2 ปีที่แล้ว +695

    As Freddie Mercury once said: "Nothing" really matters to me.

    • @anshdeo
      @anshdeo 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      is that pfp Mylo Xyloto?

    • @SofaKingShit
      @SofaKingShit 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      I see a little silhouetto of nothingness.

    • @unitedarmy1484
      @unitedarmy1484 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Legendddddd

    • @skullface2694
      @skullface2694 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      He also said a dragonfly trumpeter is his hero...

    • @qwertvxo
      @qwertvxo 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Hey Jose
      Watya gonna do widat comic material, MSG and Wembley stadium have reportedly have scabby inchy ring peices

  • @soblovey520
    @soblovey520 2 ปีที่แล้ว +436

    “Our brain analyzes past experiences so we can adjust our future behavior” Oh god is this why my brain loves to flashback to past embarrassing or cringe-worthy moments in my life the moment I relax and find some peace

    • @johnwalker1058
      @johnwalker1058 2 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      Basically, we naturally focus on the negative more because for most of our time on this earth, we pretty much needed to do so in order to find the flaws with our methods and means of survival and thus improve our chances of survival or ability to survive things.

    • @lisarodriguez6966
      @lisarodriguez6966 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@johnwalker1058 perhaps we'll evolve our way out of our brains being relentless with it.

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      nothing is more cringe

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      if i stop doing nothing then nothing will make me think of that

    • @dabombomar
      @dabombomar 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      We’re biological robots

  • @Afl129
    @Afl129 2 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    I used to think about this question when I was like 8 years old, but it drove me crazy because if nothing is nothing the word nothing wouldn’t even exist so thanks for the clarification!

  • @PLUG313x
    @PLUG313x 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    this is one of the best science videos I've ever seen. thoughtful and insightful. no unnecessary comedy or hyperactive editing. subscribed!

  • @SerendipitousProvidence
    @SerendipitousProvidence 2 ปีที่แล้ว +283

    I can't believe I'm going to watch an almost 16-minute video about nothing. Here goes nothing!

    • @mr.boomguy
      @mr.boomguy 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Lol, that could be such a brain teaser of a sentence xD

    • @zjweele13
      @zjweele13 2 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      Seinfeld made an entire show about nothing. It was quite succesfull :P

    • @odonvargas9527
      @odonvargas9527 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Lol. Same here

    • @Richard_Nickerson
      @Richard_Nickerson 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@zjweele13
      successful*

    • @MonkeyJedi99
      @MonkeyJedi99 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Richard_Nickerson pedantic*

  • @jackielinde7568
    @jackielinde7568 2 ปีที่แล้ว +291

    When working with variables in programming, there is a concept of a NULL value, or a nothing value. The idea is that zero (for numeric variables) and a string variable that contains no characters (literally nothing between the quotes "") is still SOMETHING. The idea of a NULL value is that you can create a variable and not assign it anything at that point. And you can wipe the value of the variable back to a NULL state. It's useful to see if something has interacted with the variable or if someone's filled out a field on a form.
    But now we named it, doesn't that make it SOMETHING?

    • @osiris1102
      @osiris1102 2 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      It's also the cause of notorious nullpointer exceptions

    • @jackielinde7568
      @jackielinde7568 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      @@osiris1102 For that, I blame the programmer. ;)

    • @krischalkhanal2842
      @krischalkhanal2842 2 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      NULL is empty, or none value, but it is something, and that something is a thing that represents actual nothingness. It is not nothing, but it represents nothing.

    • @christopher-si9kv
      @christopher-si9kv 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      yes, in that sense it is something. it’s a value. how much value? 0. It’s still a category, which is something.

    • @graham1034
      @graham1034 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      In Javascript we have initialized "empty" variables like 0, "", [], {} that have a type. Then you have initialized variables without a type, i.e. `null`. But there are also uninitialized variables that just don't exist at all, i.e. `undefined`. These are all very commonly used and have different behaviours.

  • @pablolloyd1450
    @pablolloyd1450 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I cannot tell you how deeply grateful I am that you made this video. Thank you! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

  • @Omroqurba
    @Omroqurba 2 ปีที่แล้ว +46

    Nothing is like infinite, it doesn't exist in reality, it's just a way of expressing mathematics. It's funny how can some people say that the universe came from nothing or from infinite universes.

  • @haironscreen778
    @haironscreen778 2 ปีที่แล้ว +365

    Joe:- "Who invented 0 and when, we don't know for sure"
    Aryabhatta :- Am I a joke to you?

  • @DrZedDrZedDrZed
    @DrZedDrZedDrZed 2 ปีที่แล้ว +99

    Thirty spokes converge at the wheel's hub,
    to a hole that allows it to turn.
    Clay is shaped into a vessel,
    to enclose an emptiness that can be filled.
    Doors and windows are cut into walls,
    to provide access to their protection.
    Though we can only work with what is there,
    use comes from what is not there.
    -Lao Tsu

    • @kindlin
      @kindlin 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      It's probably a translation thing, but I think the last stanza flows a bit better as one of the following:
      Though we can only work with what is there,
      use comes from that which is not.
      or
      Though we can only work with what there is,
      use comes from what there is not.

    • @Solipsisticdaydreams
      @Solipsisticdaydreams 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      This is an important comment for a point made at the beginning of this video. The way math was done, this thing we often think of as infallible, was different according to different philosophies. Science and math are both philosophy. The way we look at things changes them. Take all of the candies away and you still have air and arms and lungs etc. but you’re left with nothing in regards to candy. Want a unified theory? It’s all in how you look at it.

  • @ninal309
    @ninal309 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Your videos are not only educational, but also aesthetic and funny, one of the best channels

  • @randomstudent1183
    @randomstudent1183 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Coincidentally, I spent about an hour 2 days ago pondering the meaning of absoluteness & nothingness, and I concluded that the only “Absolute is nothing.”

  • @johncoxmastercartoonist9390
    @johncoxmastercartoonist9390 2 ปีที่แล้ว +118

    Joe's opening dialogue about whether or not he was doing nothing reminds me of that old Sesame Street skit where Ernie refuses to help Bert with the groceries because he argues that he's not doing nothing.

    • @hopiepink
      @hopiepink 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I thought of that too!!!

    • @grandenauto3214
      @grandenauto3214 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I think of Seinfeld

  • @austinfreyrikrw6651
    @austinfreyrikrw6651 2 ปีที่แล้ว +52

    Yup, I've learned "nothing" from watching this video today. Great job, Joe! Keep it up! Keep teaching us nothing, lol!

    • @BetterCallZeyad
      @BetterCallZeyad 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @King Pistachion lmao me too

    • @raisa_cherry33
      @raisa_cherry33 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  • @deadsirius3531
    @deadsirius3531 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    You said the most important thing in here at one point: "nothing can't exist".
    After years of thinking about the question of why there is something rather than nothing, I find that to be a surprisingly satisfying answer. "Nothing can't exist". It seems overly simplistic but any way you come at it you can't really get around that statement

  • @rogersledz6793
    @rogersledz6793 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!

  • @Confuzledish
    @Confuzledish 2 ปีที่แล้ว +107

    I think a big take away is that we're still learning. There's things we don't know, and some things we think are fact that will one day be disproven. I also really liked how you showed how societal values can even impact our understanding of the universe. But to the point - we don't even know what SOMETHING is. The further down we go to find the base 'material' of the universe the more empty space we find. Even the smallest of subatomic particles can only be described (at this time) as basically waves.

    • @fiyum333
      @fiyum333 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      maybe it's the things we don't know, or haven't remembered, or haven't perceived yet is nothingness. everything is something and nothing is something, but the something we don't know and haven't associated with everything truly is nothing and is in the aether awaiting our discovery of its existence - or, rather, somethingness.

    • @skilz8098
      @skilz8098 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@fiyum333 Ecclesiastes 1: ...There is nothing new under the sun, it has already been of old...!

    • @ws6778
      @ws6778 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      ​​@@fiyum333
      The ancient philosopher Aristotle pointed out that things are not created, everything always existed all at once, but as possibilities.
      Yet, the biggest question that remains unanswered is why possibilities are possible, why they even exist? Why existence exists?

  • @markinipannini
    @markinipannini 2 ปีที่แล้ว +166

    "What is nothing?"
    **Cuts open head of whoever decided to remove TH-cam dislikes**
    "Nvm, found it"

    • @Soodlenoup3781
      @Soodlenoup3781 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      SERIOUSLY!!!

    • @Matityahu-the-God
      @Matityahu-the-God 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      I don't understand why people hate the new inability to see how many dislikes there are. It was a toxic system that didn't bring any benefit. We don't lose anything by not being able to see that number. It literally has no use for you.

    • @markinipannini
      @markinipannini 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@Matityahu-the-God are you delusional? The like/dislike ratio was the best tool to tell you if a video (like a tutorial for example) is even worth watching before you waste 10 minutes of your life for nothing. Removing it will only lead to infinitely many more scams and bad videos and by extension more unhappiness by youtube's users. And if we're being honest, the whole toxicity and hurting youtubers feelings is bullshit! They're only doing this to make big companies like late-night shows and news channels happy and besides if you can't handle a few dislikes maybe you shouldn't be a youtuber - not to mention that if anyone wanted to the option to turn them off was already there before and that even now creators are still able to see the dislikes on their own videos so it literally makes zero sense.
      This might be the worst thing that youtube has ever done and if you install that extension that still let's you see the dislikes, you will see that youtubes removing dislikes announcement video is actually quickly becoming one of most disliked videos ever posted to youtube (by ratio), so the community obviously hates it.

    • @Matityahu-the-God
      @Matityahu-the-God 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@markinipannini the creators can still see the dislikes, so idk what the hell you're talking about. Nobody said anything about feelings of creators, you're the delusional one. Are you replying to the wrong comment or something?

    • @markinipannini
      @markinipannini 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@Matityahu-the-God thats what I'm saying! TH-cams whole point for removing the dislikes is that youtubers get their poor little feelings hurt by dislikes, but regardless they are still able to see it! It doesn't make any sense! That's why everyone hates it!

  • @shadow_24
    @shadow_24 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    I have thought over this so many times and it's a weird thing. Because when you think of nothing there is always something, but for nothing to exist there has to be something.

  • @captainwowei5705
    @captainwowei5705 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I actually used to start every school lesson with "ours is a decimal and positional system of calculation" back when I was in 1st grade. Same happened in middle school with: "numbers are a rapresentation of a quantity, not a quantity itself"

  • @rickseiden1
    @rickseiden1 2 ปีที่แล้ว +172

    At 8:57 Joe says that there are as few as 100 particles per cubic meter in intergalactic space. A cubic meter is 1,000,000 cubic centimeters. That would mean that there are 10,000 cubic centimeters of space that contain nothing. Of course, this ignores all of the quantumness that Joe talks about immediately after this.

    • @PositiveANegative
      @PositiveANegative 2 ปีที่แล้ว +32

      The absence of matter still doesn't mean 'nothing'. Not only quantum fields, but also regular EM field, spacetime... Any volume is still something. True nothingness wouldn't occupy any space (I guess)

    • @gert-janbonnema
      @gert-janbonnema 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Actually, the average density of the universe is one proton per cubic metre.
      But maybe he also counted in the fotons.

    • @jackforeman2742
      @jackforeman2742 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Nothing doesn’t exist. As something does, and always will have had.

    • @oreoisacat6297
      @oreoisacat6297 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@PositiveANegative true nothingless will occupy infinite space, not any space

    • @minmuseve5567
      @minmuseve5567 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@PositiveANegative can it even have volume if its nothing?

  • @CymruCreator
    @CymruCreator 2 ปีที่แล้ว +39

    just realising, I miss vsauce videos, but then again, this channel delivers what vsauce used to.

    • @paule.2687
      @paule.2687 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Vsauce is still putting out good content

    • @evancain4906
      @evancain4906 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@paule.2687 just not often

    • @CymruCreator
      @CymruCreator 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@paule.2687 Maybe 2 or 3 videos a year.... (shorts don't count)

  • @gamemasteraj05
    @gamemasteraj05 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I’ve zoned out enough to think about nothing. Took in visual stimuli but my brain was not processing any of it. Snapped back to reality when my dad asked me what I was thinking about and couldn’t remember the last min or 2

  • @stargazeronesixseven
    @stargazeronesixseven ปีที่แล้ว +2

    If Nothing is the Opposite of Everything , then Everything is related from Nothing? Wow , that's Deep! Thanks for the illumination!

  • @osib999
    @osib999 2 ปีที่แล้ว +109

    This video made me feel really weird in a good way, I have been dealing with a serious fear, almost a phobia, of death, just thinking about the world eons after I die sometimes pushes me to the edge of crying but thinking about becoming something else (and I mean only physically, I am not religious), getting the elements that ARE my body back to nature and universe to become a lot of somethings elses is really comforting, thank you for those last phrases :)

    • @karlkarlsson9126
      @karlkarlsson9126 2 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      Life is very fascinating and sad, we as individuals being so aware and conscious of the fact of being alive and unique as individuals, so many personalities and great people we are, but don't fear death, see death as the ultimate mystery that we all someday will get an answer to when we get old, and don't forget that we have all already been dead before we were born, being dead is where we truly belong, but most importantly, don't live your life thinking about death, being alive is about living, because no matter how much you think about death you will eventually realize that it's just a waste of time and how ridiculous it is to think about it when you are living, we are not dead until we are dead, and when we are dead that's when we can start to think about it. Also, everything we are made of comes from Earth, and we will leave what we are made of on Earth. But just live now and enjoy life, try to be happy, it's the best feeling in the world, it makes you appreciate what life is, with happiness you counter death so easily, and you will appreciate every living being around you, how fantastic it for us all to share this time together, and who knows, maybe there is something afterwards which might be even better, but until then, we will try to live in heaven already! The particles that makes up us will always be around anyway, don't worry about it, we will always be here together. Live as you will live forever, the only thing that makes sense.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Don't worry. No one knows. Your atoms will persist.

    • @caricue
      @caricue 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@scottslotterbeck3796 Which atoms are you referring to? The atoms that made up your body when you were a baby? The atoms of 10 year old you? If you live another decade or so, none of the atoms that are you now will be in future Scott, they may even be incorporated into someone else or be floating around in the ocean. It makes no sense to consider yourself atoms or molecules which are completely generic and interchangeable.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@caricue Atoms live. Part of you will always be here.

    • @deus_ex_machina_
      @deus_ex_machina_ 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@scottslotterbeck3796 I believe what Steve is referring to is the physiological equivalent of the 'Ship of Theseus', a thought experiment that has flummoxed philosophers for millennia. It's Okay to be Smart explored this topic in their recent video: th-cam.com/video/6EowCxpKKJ0/w-d-xo.html

  • @whoever6458
    @whoever6458 2 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    My favorite question to ask drunk people is, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Then, of course, I finally got drunk enough myself to have the thought that one's notion of something had to exist before one's notion of nothing because I saw nothing as an absence of something. Now I am also thinking that, even if nothing existed in and of itself, since our perception is based on something interacting with our senses, we would have no way to be able to perceive nothing in and of itself just by virtue of the limits of our ability to perceive.

    • @simonux1226
      @simonux1226 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      You'll love this th-cam.com/video/4TAO_NjrJ7M/w-d-xo.html

  • @allanmonestel9635
    @allanmonestel9635 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I love your videos man, thanks for all the knowledge ❤️

  • @jericoba
    @jericoba 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Fantastic episode and narration/script. Thanks!

  • @mpierre3026
    @mpierre3026 2 ปีที่แล้ว +48

    Love this episode. Reminds me of the time in college I challenged my friends to think of nothing. We had a great laugh realising we couldn't and spawned some deep conversations

  • @aprobaralaprimera8108
    @aprobaralaprimera8108 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    0:52 As a mathematician I need to say that the opposite of nothing is "at least one" and the opposite of all is "at least one is not"

    • @percapita1239
      @percapita1239 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      And nothing equals zero, it´s only natural. So the conclusion here is that i´m not a bum or a nobody, a zero. It´s plain science that dictates that, but i´m probably annoying to the net since i can treat all like buddies and usually i´m in for a surprise just there....
      And have a good day

  • @sueelliott4793
    @sueelliott4793 8 วันที่ผ่านมา

    I was watching this video and someone asked me what I was watching. I replied "nothing" 😊Thank you, I always enjoy your videos

  • @uSkizzik
    @uSkizzik 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Dunno about y'all but sometimes I just drift away and think about stuff like this. Sometimes I look around me and get amazed by how far humanity has come and how we started out as simple animals like the others around us.

  • @blizzbee
    @blizzbee 2 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    This word always leads to discussion in "Philosophy" way.

  • @DomyTheMad420
    @DomyTheMad420 2 ปีที่แล้ว +34

    my favorite funfact about "nothing" ? The Boltzmann brain concept.
    ->due to how quantum mechanics seems to function; it is perfectly possible for say a clump of gold to randomly appear out of nowhere in the middle of empty space. it's VERY VERY VERY unlikely. but possible. any combo, any material, any structure. the larger & more comples, the LESS likely. but never zero.
    ->in an infinite universe with infinite time this would imply that at some point in time, at some place for no real reason a fully formed entity/brain/person will just randomly appear (and start living).
    >You name it.
    If it can exist in reality, it CAN appear out of thin air in empty space for no good reason.
    The chances of it happening may be 1 over 'near infinity'
    but hey, the universe is infinite and time likely is too.
    and "near infinity" is less then actual infinity
    THEREFORE logically speaking
    at some point your mom will pop up in random space, with all of her memories and thicc booty
    and wonder why you still haven't cleaned your bedroom today.
    Boltzmann brain.
    look it up!

    • @CthulhuTheory
      @CthulhuTheory 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Technically time isn't infinite, especially if theories of the eventual heat death of the universe, paired with particle decay that will empty the universe of anything measurable within, are true. At that point time, as we define it, stops and therefore has an end.

    • @rjthescholar177
      @rjthescholar177 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@CthulhuTheory Time could be infinite, heat death is the end of thermodynamic processes, not the end of time.

    • @theace8502
      @theace8502 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@rjthescholar177 true, but with absolutely nothing happening in this heat-death universe, time won't matter anyway, even IF it continues. Because there will be almost nothing there to experience it anyway

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@rjthescholar177 space time might continue to expand after the heat death. Time is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not a well defined quantity. It is fair to suggest time requires action, rather than the other way around, but this is conjecture, interpretation, not empirical falsifiability.

  • @sray118
    @sray118 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Thanks, this video helps a lot for understanding Sartre’s being and nothingness

  • @dayanaafifah8259
    @dayanaafifah8259 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    So this guy spend 15 minutes explaining the meaning of "nothing"... Woah the dedication is just mind-blowing bro 😭🤌

  • @Francois_L_7933
    @Francois_L_7933 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    This reminds me of a philosophy teacher I know who used to ask his students to write an essay about nought... good thing he was a good guy as he always gave some points for the effort.

    • @williamparrish5002
      @williamparrish5002 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      What grade would I have received for never handing anything in and disclaiming any knowledge of the assignment's existence?

    • @RaikaTempest
      @RaikaTempest 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      That would be so hard. I don't think you can describe nothing. If nothing can be described, that means its description is something. And if the description of something is something, then the thing its describing is also something and therefore not nothing.

    • @jayknowles2146
      @jayknowles2146 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      *hands in a blank piece of paper*

  • @iamoldteen
    @iamoldteen 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    Thanks for this video. It brought back treasured memories of my dad egging on a teenage me with the argument, “…but nothing is something.” It was four decades ago but it might as well have been yesterday. You were right, dad. I sure miss you.

  • @FrancisKoczur
    @FrancisKoczur 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    The closest thing to 'nothing', is the classification of concepts that can't exist physically. Absolute Zero, a perfect vacuum, energy removed/destroyed from the universe, etc.
    Also since concepts can be created, but not destroyed (since the information now exists, but it can be lost/forgotten), time generally goes forward.

  • @amitgurjar49
    @amitgurjar49 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I really liked how you pick something that seems so common to us but is quiet complicate in other ways....
    BTW at 5:20 it is pronouncec as "shunya" with an sh

  • @ziasteele9332
    @ziasteele9332 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    I am a big time daydreamer, and I feel like I understand myself and the way my mind works a lot better now. Thank you for that.

  • @silvermist6891
    @silvermist6891 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I was thinking about number systems today, and voila, you uploaded. Thanks Joe! Much love xx

  • @Hyrulistic
    @Hyrulistic 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I look forward to watching this, but my pre-coffee lazy-watching-in-bed brain just wasn't ready for that philosophical intro 😅
    TBH not sure what else I was expecting from this channel, keep up the great work! :)

  • @salmazhafirah9679
    @salmazhafirah9679 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Hey Joe love the video. Hey, can your next video be about if electricity has always been in the world, why or why not and if yes how do we not know about it before we did?

  • @lesleyghostdragon3149
    @lesleyghostdragon3149 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Grateful for PBS and TH-cam!!
    Super thankful (for) "It's Okay To Be Smart"!!!
    And a big thanks to everyone who makes quality science/educational shows/programming possible!!!!!!!

  • @its2point072
    @its2point072 2 ปีที่แล้ว +31

    Joe: what are you thinking about?
    Me with anphantasia: Everything and nothing

    • @beaconblaster33
      @beaconblaster33 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      what were your made up stories looking like

    • @trin873
      @trin873 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      same also it’s aphantasia

  • @ratatataraxia
    @ratatataraxia 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    I’ve had this conversation with myself a thousand times. Interesting to hear it verbalized.

    • @flyingproofficial
      @flyingproofficial 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Same we are turning VSAUCE

  • @eliseveldt
    @eliseveldt 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

    i just wanna say i love your videos.

  • @jessiepapabear4272
    @jessiepapabear4272 2 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    I love what you teach us! I'm thankful for what you teach us! I enjoy sharing what you teach us!

  • @oPHILOSORAPTORo
    @oPHILOSORAPTORo 2 ปีที่แล้ว +81

    Atomists: "Nothing is real."
    Existentialists and nihilists: "Same."
    Bastion and Atreyu: "Yeah, it's definitely real."

    • @titude
      @titude 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      And it got bigger. AND BIGGER.....
      -rock biter

  • @flightydancer
    @flightydancer ปีที่แล้ว

    Beautifully said! We are all immortals existing together forever!

  • @daniel_rossy_explica
    @daniel_rossy_explica 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I can think in nothing. I do it when I want to sleep. I just concentrate on what I'm hearing (cars going by in the distance, mostly) while shutting down my internal monologe (which is hard to do when I'm anxious for example). But I can shut down my brain if it's necessary.

  • @ThickUP
    @ThickUP 2 ปีที่แล้ว +61

    "According to most models of physics, there can't be anything outside the universe, because the universe is, by definition, everything." Can someone please explain to me how this is different from the universe expanding into nothing? How is 'not being anything' different from being nothing, and what is the purpose of this distinction?

    • @LeOnIdAs162
      @LeOnIdAs162 2 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      The universe expands on it self.

    • @kilat1791
      @kilat1791 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Something expanding into nothing is like a puddle of water spreading out to dry surface. Not being anything is more like the surface has always been wet and the somethings are the droplets sticking out of the wet surface.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Who made this definition? God? Man?

    • @GandalfTheTsaagan
      @GandalfTheTsaagan 2 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      That's the point, nothingness doesn't exist outside of the theoretical, but we made it up imagining the antithesis of everything which is something we can attest to.
      Just like negative values and perfection aren't real in a strict sense, but you can imagine the concept and work around it.

    • @sad.platypus
      @sad.platypus 2 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Example to help visualise it: When we measure curvature of universe geometry it looks like its flat (no curvature, parallel lines stay parallel, angles work like you expect them to) and apparently it suggests that universe is infinite. In this scenario infinite universe expands and is well... still infinite, just distances between points in space grew larger. There can be no nothingness beyond edge of universe if no matter how far you go either direction you will never find such boundary. OFC there is possibility that universe is curved and just sooooo much larger than our observable bubble that we cannot measure curvature, but here I'm at loss about how nothingness would apply and if there could be something beyond universe if size is finite.

  • @janj09
    @janj09 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    I guess its once again time to bring back one of my favorites quotes.
    "For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either."
    BLAISE PASCAL, FRENCH PHILOSOPHER, "PASCAL'S WAGER"
    Saw this in the Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War loading screens many years ago.

  • @pterodactylbull
    @pterodactylbull ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I had this argument with my ex best friend in college. It was the catalyst to our friendship ending. She refused to accept that the idea of “nothing” is completely subjective. She insisted “nothing” was always “something”. I was thinking more philosophical, she was thinking more rational. I accepted that and she wouldn’t. Lol it was the most infuriating conversation tbh.

  • @charusingh2159
    @charusingh2159 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    At 5:06 it's pronounced as shoonya.
    BTW, great video Joe, I have learnt so many things from "nothing".

  • @Raktus
    @Raktus 2 ปีที่แล้ว +59

    There was a story I once read involving a group of people getting trapped in a hypercube shaped like a house. One person looks out a window and see's nothing. The story takes a moment to explain that what they see isn't blackness or a pure white space, but nothing at all. It's a mind breaking exercise... like imagine transparency with nothing beyond it, forever...

    • @UATU.
      @UATU. 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Was it "And He Built a Crooked House” by Robert Heinlein?

    • @Richard_Nickerson
      @Richard_Nickerson 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Title please?

    • @Tashishi0
      @Tashishi0 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@UATU. I think it might be. I read that years ago.

    • @robspiess
      @robspiess 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Nothing. Not black, like the color you see when you close your eyes. Nothing, like the color you see out of your knee.

    • @ArawnOfAnnwn
      @ArawnOfAnnwn 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Hah! I thought of this idea myself years ago. :) Another way of conceptualizing it that I came up with was to imagine the whole universe without color - and in this case white and black are also colors. Both approaches paint the same picture, except you can't actually imagine that picture!

  • @paulaner979
    @paulaner979 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    Somebody: "What are you good at?"
    Me: "Nothing.".
    Somebody: "Wow, you're a genius!"

  • @JazzMac36251
    @JazzMac36251 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Aristotle thought that if an object moved through nothing, it would move infinitely fast.
    That's kind of true if you consider the Higgs field the final "something". So good job, Aristotle!

  • @forestfn3595
    @forestfn3595 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    The title is very clever! The title makes no sense without context so it makes you click!!! Very smart👍

  • @benmcreynolds8581
    @benmcreynolds8581 2 ปีที่แล้ว +22

    I've been thinking about this a lot. Differences is very important. Temperature, density, such as the ocean, then air, then space.. differences are necessary for every action in nature to occur.

    • @RaikaTempest
      @RaikaTempest 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Entropy is crazy too. If you have a bunch of "same", it doesn't do anything. But if you have a bunch of "difference", things happen until it is all "same". That's probably the easiest way I can explain how literally everything in existence works.

  • @idmeghaburnwal
    @idmeghaburnwal 2 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    3:05 hey hey hey! Aryabhatta invented zero ( from India )

    • @idmeghaburnwal
      @idmeghaburnwal 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Okay you mention it later

    • @rohdx
      @rohdx 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      You mean discovered

    • @idmeghaburnwal
      @idmeghaburnwal 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@rohdx I would say invented coz he did not find out something which was originally there. Like for india , vasco da gama discovered india - the country was originally there . But zero as a digit was not

    • @rohdx
      @rohdx 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@idmeghaburnwal yup ok

  • @ultravoilentanomaly
    @ultravoilentanomaly 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    This vid is immediately nostalgic to me! when I was young, I liked to think about "nothing" and I came to the conclusion that "nothing" can't exist... because things exist?... It made my head hurt. xD
    when people said they were doing nothing I would say, "NOT POSSIBLE!"

  • @djemba
    @djemba 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    If it started from nothing, then there must be already something in existence before everything who has no beginning and end. The source of everything.

  • @unvergebeneid
    @unvergebeneid 2 ปีที่แล้ว +194

    Today I learned that Joe is a man who swallows tacos whole.

    • @fajaradi1223
      @fajaradi1223 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Without even chew it

    • @darookmezd
      @darookmezd 2 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      And shares all his candies

    • @darookmezd
      @darookmezd 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@fajaradi1223 that's exactly what Penny said

    • @jimmym3352
      @jimmym3352 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      You mean that's not normal?

    • @Secret_Moon
      @Secret_Moon 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Just like a man with culture.

  • @isaacwalters747
    @isaacwalters747 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    "The empty set is a subset of all sets". Nothing is everywhere!

  • @ChaoticNeutralMatt
    @ChaoticNeutralMatt ปีที่แล้ว

    Quintessence the Higgs field? Just love the ladder of progress which circles back around

  • @567secret
    @567secret 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    The contents of the empty set.
    Zero on the other hand is a quantity that quantifies the size of the empty set.

  • @jml5926
    @jml5926 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    It has various meanings, and it depends on the context it is being use. However, it cannot escape that the moment you define it, "something" encompasses it. It is still an information, a kind of configuration, a phenomenon.

  • @mementomori7160
    @mementomori7160 2 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    This reminds me of one dream, a black hole was shooting through the sky and with each time it was closer and closer until it swallowed everything(me including) and I felt... noting? death? I have no way to put it in words, I was just feeling without being able to create any conscious thought

    • @fisterB
      @fisterB 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Which off course is too much something to be nothing but strange enough. Your dream ran into trouble trying to represent real nothing, but you were still there. Imagine 10^500 failed universes in the multiverse all without observers. How could they ever be said to be real? Imagine not even one universe, no observers, just nothing. I can't imagine that either.

  • @missseaweed2462
    @missseaweed2462 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I made a character a long time ago which is a manifestation of nothing, but is also representative of in-betweens. It was/is before the big bang and after the end. When there is a grim reaper presenting the hand of death, this entity takes them to their own death, because after the last living entity dies, death as a process and a concept is no more. Void is the physical, philosophical, personal, conceptual space between two people. It is the nebulous space between your screen and mine. It hovers between real, fictional, and conceptual multiverses. As nothing is a concept outside of spacetime, it is often revisiting/at the big bang, but is also omnipresent within ideas and values, connecting the "something" that it longs to be, but is not, and never will be.

  • @majidgr8
    @majidgr8 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Bakhshali Is my village , IDK about its manuscript ! good to know form you as usual 👍👍

  • @SSJfraz
    @SSJfraz 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    "Nothing" and "Something" are just words like everything else. We shape reality around the way we think, not the other way around. Reality as it exists and reality as it exists within our own minds are two separate things. Reality itself has no concept of something or nothingness, it's just the way our brains decode reality in a way that seems to make sense to us.

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Arguably noumena can be understood as divergences and convergences of the interrelations in nature which cause our phenomenological sense of similarity and difference. Which is to say I agree, yet the two are not logically distinct, beyond a Kantian categorical sense.

    • @deepakkumarsingh2900
      @deepakkumarsingh2900 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Then what is the existence of brain. In brain there is movement of electric charge which creates the thought and thinking. Then at first place why does brain exist or does it exists?

    • @101Mant
      @101Mant 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@deepakkumarsingh2900 the brain exists because it was an evolutionary advantage for our ancestors to have increasingly complex nervous systems that eventually resulted in brains. Brains let animals predict future behavior based on passed events with some degree of accuracy and the more sophisticated ones can learn and adapt.

    • @101Mant
      @101Mant 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      That's both accurate and useless. The world is far too complex for us to deal with each thing in it so our brains mostly work in abstractions, which are categories, assign words to represent them and reason about those. If you dismiss something because it just words and categories you are dismissing basically all human though and reason. Its not a meaningful criticism or helpful observation unless we are actually talking about how people think.

  • @sherwood820
    @sherwood820 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Great video! Gotta be a pedant for a sec 🙂
    Unless I’m mistaken, pi was originally thought of, not as circumference to diameter, but as the ratio of the AREA of a circle to the area of a SQUARE with a side length equal to the radius. Hence the area formula. I remember this when I brought up tau to my history of math professor.
    Though, of course, pi was not the standard/conventional symbol until much later.

  • @abhishekbhujwa3030
    @abhishekbhujwa3030 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Zero and the place value system was invented and used by Aryabhatta in india, it was in written records of many of his manuscripts and books, even Fibonacci acknowledged the fact and he also admitted that he found the Fibonacci series in these books from india which he obtained from European traders. He just made it more understandable for the Europeans.

  • @joeyboikly
    @joeyboikly 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    The glass is always full of something, nothing is just an idea. Zero doesn’t exist.

  • @besmart
    @besmart  2 ปีที่แล้ว +91

    Me: What did you learn?
    You: Nothing
    And make sure you take the PBS Digital Studios annual viewer survey and tell them how much you love our show! to.pbs.org/2021survey

  • @sofiacervantes4798
    @sofiacervantes4798 2 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.
    It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
    "Oh!" said Pooh

  • @bretturner3413
    @bretturner3413 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thank you very much for the lesson.

  • @Tina_99999
    @Tina_99999 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    That was the question which pops in my head all the time for no reason „what is nothing“?

  • @11er33.
    @11er33. 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I'm ngl. I have a lot of existential anxiety. About what we are, how God fits into it all, of how it all fits into His plan. About what nothing could be. If atoms are made of quarks, what are quarks made of. What is the space between atoms and electrons. It gives me nothing short of panic attacks. This actually helps a lot

  • @richardbidinger2577
    @richardbidinger2577 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I always learn something every day, and there's "nothing" wrong with that.😁👍

  • @Fox_in_Thoughts
    @Fox_in_Thoughts 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Reminded me of a poem I wrote which was basically me wondering if nothing and something were equal or not. Thanks to past humans messing with us, now, nothing exists.

  • @alwaysapirateroninace443
    @alwaysapirateroninace443 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
    by: Charles Seife is a fascinating book that delves into this subject.

  • @Jean-fc8ug
    @Jean-fc8ug 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Wow i love science and understand how our universe work. Thank you for sharing "nothing" with us. 😂 Always love your videos!

  • @leonidgeorgiev9015
    @leonidgeorgiev9015 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Nothingness, or just Nothing is so powerful, that it really has the power of Absolute Infinity.

  • @lazyme.8488
    @lazyme.8488 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    YES!!!! This question has been bothering me for years.

  • @aster_11
    @aster_11 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I have to say, one of my favourite things to think abt is nothing. Idek how, but I was literally speaking to my irl friend abt this literally yesterday... And now it's on my recommended lmao

  • @fredoat
    @fredoat 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Thank you for trying to confuse the heck out of me!!

  • @NewMessage
    @NewMessage 2 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    My Wife: "Watchya watchin'?"
    Me: "Nothing..."
    My Wife: "Fine, be that way."
    Me: "No, but.... Look it's about.."
    My Wife: * stomps off and slams the door *

  • @unknown_0047_
    @unknown_0047_ 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thats What ive Been always thinking about!

  • @PaperBoat.
    @PaperBoat. ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Nothing Technology Limited is a consumer electronics manufacturer based in London, England. It was founded by Carl Pei, the co-founder of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus. Investors in the company include iPod inventor Tony Fadell, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and TH-camr Casey Neistat.
    😂