Nothing is the lack or absence of anything. "Nothing" and "zero" are closely related but not identical concepts. The term "nothing" is rarely used mathematically, though it could be said that a set contains nothing if and only if it is the empty set, in which case its cardinality (or size) is zero.
The concept of "nothing" has been studied throughout history by philosophers and theologians; many have found that careful consideration of the notion can easily lead to the logical fallacy of reification. The understanding of "nothing" varies widely between cultures, especially between Western and Eastern cultures and philosophical traditions, though existentialism, and in particular Heidegger have brought the understandings closer together.
Informally, a person, event or object might be said to be nothing if particularly unimpressive.
The second approach to the problem asserts the origin of nothingness from formal negation, i.e., nothingness is only a formal logical nominalistic concept, fully removed from the role of the problem of nothingness in ontology.
However, this chronological asymmetry does not mean ontological priority of nothingness over being, but rather leads to the establishment of a peculiar “dynamic equilibrium” between being-here and nothingness: nothingness permeates all existing spheres as temporal, actively operates in the world.
The feeling of nothingness becomes possible for humanity thanks to border situations (Jasper’s terminology); among them dread plays the fundamental role, which in its basis is consciousness of the truly ultimate extreme, that is, the feeling of death.
Nothingness, as we have seen above, is the ground of the negation because it conceals the negation within itself, because it is the negation as being.
It must be clearly understood that this original necessity of being its own nothingness doe not belong to consciousness intermittently and on the occasion of particular negations.
But we see that the nothingness which is the condition of all transcendent negation can be elucidated only in terms of two other original nihilations:(1) Consciousness is not its own motive inasmuch as it [consciousness] is empty of all content.
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