Sorry for the delay... different time zones, you know, and a guy has to sleep sometimes.
In cases of specific identity, yes.
No. That is a common understanding, but it is too limited and bound to our perception.
First of all, "nothing" would be the absence of "everything"... "something" isn't enough.
I will show you the reasoning behind this.
And here we see clearly why this common understanding of "nothing" is lacking.
You seem to think that only "something" exists, that every "something" exists, and that... well, I am still not sure what you think about "nothing" and "non-existence".
So let's talk about "something", as an experiment.
Let's talk about your last post, where you confessed in iambic pentameters that you are a pink and green striped squirrel, who is posting here to impress women.
Is this "something" or "nothing"?
The question of its existence or non-existence should (hah!) be easy to answer: there isn't anything in your last post written in iambic pentameters, mentioned pink-green squirrels or your need to impress women.
There is no evidence of such a confession. It doesn't exist. It is "nothing".
But this "nothing" has an identity. It can be described and distinguished from other "nothings" - like the part of your last post where you posted the image of an elephant entering the first spaceship to Jupiter. That also does "not exist"... is "nothing".
Or is it?
If that was "nothing"... just "the absence of something"... it would not exclude the presence of "something else". To be "nothing", we would have to exclude this "something else" as well... for every possible "something elses".
Which would leave us with "absence of everything".
Now we have established that "nothing" can be described as "the absence of everything".
The "absence of everything" is singular and unique. There is no distinction between one "absence of everything" and a different "absence of everything".
There can be no different
absence of everything.
That means that everything that we can distinguish from different instances of a similar kind is not "nothing". Your confession to being a squirrel is not "nothing", just as your picture of the space-elephant is not "nothing".
But both of these do not exist. They are examples of "something" that does not exist... and that we know does not exist.
Of course ...
... so if we are to "think reasonably here", the lack of evidence of your confession to be a squirrel who posts pictures of elephants and is out to impress women does not mean it didn't happen.
Or do you want to rethink that part again?
I will not even try to debate the "true nature of atheism" with you... but you have hit on a point here.
I do have knowledge of nothing.
You remember how I explained that "nothing" is the "absence of everything"? Well, this "everything" is really "everything": material, spiritual, ideal and conceptual. And that includes such pesky little concepts like "logic" and "rationality" and "causality"... or even "concepts".
I can hear it already: you are going to tell me "That is irrational!"
Yes, it is. The real "nothing" is irrational. What we usually call "nothing" just isn't the real thing. It is anapproximation based on the limited means that we, rational beings in a rational universe, have to approach the irrational.
That leaves me with but one conclusion: this "nothing" is the ground of all we call "being". Thus I prefer to drop the misleading term "nothing" and call it "primal chaos".
As this primal chaos is the ground of all being, and it cannot have the identity that is attributed to God, this God who is said to be the ground of all being cannot exist.