Who's there?
Nobody.
Firstly, there is a difference between nothing and something.
Nothing is not something. There is a difference between the concept of nothing and actual nothing (oblivion), of which we should say there are two types: Objective and Existential. The concept of nothing is something, because it is a concept, something, so to speak, tangible. It is a construct. This means that, when we think about “nothing”, we are, in fact, thinking about something. But physical nothingness is not a thing, because it is a lack of a thing that makes it no-thing. It is not a something, this is the Objective kind of nothing we are considering when we say, “Nothing is not something.” To this, we suggest that in order for “nothing” to exist, then it must be reference in something, in the same way that “something” is usually in reference to, well, a thing.
For instance, “There is nothing there.” In this case, nothing is referring to “there”, a particular location. This means that, in an objective place, there is not an object — a thing. Therefore, there is nothing. Nothing, in this instance, cannot be in reference to anything around the specific objective place. To add, we create a scene: outside, in a field. If we say that there is nothing in front of us, we are not speaking about the gra**, the mountains in the distance, or the sky. In the objective space, the air, as we'd call it, there is nothing. We should call this type of “nothing”, Objective Nothing.
Existential Nothing, on the other hand, has more to do with, as the term implies, existence. This goes beyond the concept of nothing, and falls into a conversation considering eradication, that is, can something cease to be.
In this essay, we're principally going to be focusing on the former, Objective Nothing.
So, the argument which one believes we're truly querying here is, “Does nothing exist?” What is the existence of nothing, essentially. The existence of nothing is not the existence of something, because the existence of nothing precipitates the conclusion that it is a lack of being, a lack of anything: true and utter nothingness; nonexistence, not being — d**h and oblivion. In same way that it is been posited that, a god is likely something we cannot fathom, nothing might be considered in the same way. This is not to say that nothing and god are the same thing, rather, they are two separate entities which happen to exist on the scale of things that humans cannot comprehend. Our minds are too limited, at least in the conscious state, to understand the existence/concept of nothing, appropriately — but the fallacy of ignorance is in fact a fallacy. Because we do not know something does not mean it is something we cannot know, ever. Knowledge is not limited.
The question then becomes, we find, what is nothing? Nothing is a construct we have created in order to cla**ify a lack of something, yes? In the same instance, we must consider that an Existential Nothing (cosmic nothing, perhaps) exists. Surely, on some level, there is a thing which is not. This argument has proposed that, it's quite possible this Existential Nothing was what “existed” before the Big Bang. Simply, not. One finds the Louis C.K. Dilemma of Why. When queried by his daughter, “Why?” to a series of answers Louis provides following the question, “Why is it raining,” he eventually reaches a rather existential point in reasoning where it comes down to, and goes beyond, his very existence, resolving in the conclusion:
Things that aren't can't be!
Things that are not cannot be. That is, something that did not exist before, cannot suddenly exist, or, more aptly — as I have always understood the phrase — something which truly is not will never be, in our present, according to certain rules we have managed to corroborate. We are not talking about physical things, but rather, the more intangible. One way to understand the phrase, though, is to say that, because we exist, we must always exist. In the same way that we say God does not exist here, God does not suddenly there if we were to accept the multiverse theory, and say that, in a different reality, God does exist. No, he does not. God does not begin existing because he exists somewhere else, he still does not exist here, therefore he does not.
Note, do not take that as a definitive me saying God does not exist at all, rather, it's not a good argument for the existence of God.
The point is that, if something currently is, it does not cease to be. Even if you “eradicate” someone from a photograph, or if you nuke the sh** out of some poor island nation in the Pacific — they still are, just not as we knew them.