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Comment by neycoda | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious how the field that allows vibration exists instead of just pure nothing that isn't a field that doesn't allow vibration or bending or virtual particles etc. Heisenberg's principle seems contingent on the void of nothing being a field that can wobble.

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> Heisenberg's principle seems contingent on the void of nothing being a field that can wobble.

Sadly (?) the word "nothing" seems to have become overloaded, so now—depending on who you talk to—you can have the word pointing to different concepts. See "seven types/levels of nothing":

* https://rlkuhn.com/wp-content/uploads/Closer-to-Truth-Essays...

* https://closertotruth.com/news/levels-of-nothing-by-robert-l...

A silly thought I had while reading that article: it presupposes that "nothing" is a noun. In doing so, it assumes that in the sentence "the <noun> <verbs>" you can substitute "nothing" and it would mean "<nothing> is an entity that does the <verbing>" instead of "<verbing> simply does not happen", and I feel that is a meaningful distinction.

> Sadly (?) the word "nothing" seems to have become overloaded

"Infinity" is another one of those things that used to be murky, but simple; after Cantor we now have different infinities ℵ0, ℵ1... an un-Ockhamian proliferation of terms, and we have to worry about the spaces between them. Science ruins everything!

The use of "literally" to mean figuratively has grown in popularity in recent years (as a form of emphasis); though it is not a new use:

* https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally

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