You're looking in the wrong direction.

Here is my claim:

Nothing exists.

And now I will prove it:

Step One: The Premises

Nothing is equivalent to absence. (is non-depletible, has no mass, no momentum, no electric charge, no solidity, no location, no extension in space, etc.)

Existence is equivalent to finitude. (If something is said to not exist, the integer that represents that thing is zero. Infinity does not exist, therefore ∞ = 0. To say that nothing exists is equivalent to saying that 0 ≠ ∞, which is to say that zero is finite.)

Step Two: The Question

The question is, "Is zero finite?"

Step Three: The Conjecturous Dileberations

Examples of a, "nothing," as, "something that is not a thing," or, "something that is not present," include meaning, information, thoughts, dreams, hallucinations, ideas, experience, mind, consciousness, and sentience.

Like zero and infinity, multiplied by any number the product remains equal to the multiplier. Each of the above then is both infinite and absent, making them equivalent to nothing.

By contrast, things such as bricks, rocks, trees, cars computers, books, cups, etc., like real numbers, when multiplied by any number result in a product of more than the original multiplier, making them equivalent to something.

To simplify the class, "something," we can represent all of those things that are present and finite as simply, "The One," as in the numerical 1.

And, to simplify the class, "nothing," we can represent all of those things that are absent and infinite as simply, "The Zero," as in the numerical 0.

The dichotomous relationship between the two classes seems to present a dilemma: Either The One is primary, or The Zero is primary.

Immediately we are confronted with the the observation that all numbers, including The One, are fundamentally ideas, which we have previously classed with The Zero, as a nothing. So we begin in a state of alarm.

Second we observe that the existence of The One will necessarily imply the existence of it's absence, The Zero. Stated in another way: We can only know that "something" exists by comparing it to "nothing." Without the possibility of "nothing" the concept "something" becomes meaningless. This does not seem to be true in the reverse case as a nothing requires nothing. Our alarm is exponential.

Finally we notice that the idea of real numbers must result from a process of multiplication. The One must be counting something in order to exist. The process of counting we can call The Multiple.

Through a continuous process of multiplication The One and thus all numbers can be produced. Through multiplication all numbers are produced, thus even The One is birthed from this primal process.

But this process must set to work on something.

We have then a situation in which the process called The Multiple must be ontologically prior to The One, and something must be ontologically prior to The Multiple, else it has nothing to work on, and thus nothing to multiply.

Thus, we can posit that the process has nothing to work on, and thus nothing to multiply.

To state simply, "The One is the result of first counting that which is not there, namely The Zero."

In this way, The One is a multiple of The Zero, thus The Zero is the more basic of the two.

Thus we see that everything that is a multiple of The One is what we call "something," which is to say is present and finite, and everything that is not a multiple of The One is what we call "nothing," which is to say absent and infinite.

Any attempt to account for everything will always fall short and will always be incomplete because The Multiple cannot cannot account for the nothing that underlies it. The Zero (and infinite) is there, but it cannot be counted in the logic of the closed system created by The Multiple process, represented here as The One.

The Zero instantiates uncountability itself. The Zero is the unpresentable. The Zero in every situation testifies to the failure of the operation to totalize. The operation cannot totalize, because it cannot account for the uncountable nothing which underlies it.

The Conclusion: Nothing Exists! It really does!

We must therefore conclude that nothing actually does, in fact, exist.

It exists, because it is the most basic and fundamental, while all else is mere idea; chimera produced by process.

It is not that 0≠∞, but instead, it is that 0=∞ is a set: {0=∞}, which can be multiplied to produce 1, which can in turn be multiplied further to produce the many.

Considered as a set that can be multiplied, {0=∞}, nothing is finite, and thus exists.

• KG

Photo by Alessio Lin on Unsplash