If nothing is nothing, then nothing is something.

Discuss:

If nothing is nothing then nothing doesn't exist. So it can't be something.

But isn't absence of something (which is nothing), still something?

No.

Gave me a good laugh!

In seriousness, though, "nothing", as defined by the absence not only of something, but the absence of anything, is non-existant. Meaning, it does not exist. The question is moot, because complete non-existance, not merely "nothing", cannot exist. It's a logical impossibility.

The idea of nothing exists, but it's an artificial construction which exists only in the imagination. It has no reference in reality.

It is the same kind of problem as we saw in the "balance" thread. The word is used in more than one way. This can be easily seen if you say the opening phrase with different emphasis: try "if No Thing is nothing": it is immediately clear that the first term is not identical with the second. The apparent paradox rests on that confusion IMO. But the problem is not with non-existence, in quite the way Vorgoeth suggests: though that may well be true, I don't see it helps us unless we tease it out a bit more.

The phrase "unicorns are white" is not anything like the phrase "nothing is nothing" though the form is the same. In "unicorns are white" we are saying that "white" is an attribute of unicorns: which may or may not be true. But in "nothing is nothing" the second "nothing" is not an attribute.

You can rephrase "unicorns are white" like this: "there exists no unicorn which is not white". It is intelligible and it is not a tautology. If it is true then anything which is not white is not a unicorn: or it may be false, as it proved with swans. But there is a positive assertion that unicorns have the attrubute "white".

You cannot intelligibly say: "there exists no nothing which is not nothing", because you have not said anything about "nothing" which would help you to say whether it is true or false: it isn't even in that ball park. Thus "nothing" is not a quality like "white". It is a different kind of concept.

But you have to look at the first "nothing" as well. Take the phrase "nothing is a unicorn". Are we defining nothing as a unicorn, on the lines of "a kitten is a cat", or even " a rose is a rose"? Obviously not. We are saying something more like " there exists no item x, where x= unicorn. You can happily say a "unicorn has one horn"; "a unicorn is white"; or "a unicorn likes virgins": none of that depends on the existence of a unicorn. Attributes do not need to be tied to existing things, then. The unicorn is an artificial construction, as Vorgoeth puts it: but that does not mean the original question is moot because of that, if the non-existence is related to the second "nothing" in the phrase: it is moot because of what the first "nothing" means: and that "nothing" means that "unicorn" is an empty set in the real world. In short it is not a noun.

Exactely.