The question is nonsensical.
Depends on what 'nonsensical' means, I guess. But I do persist in thinking that the question of this thread is very real and that it's nothing less than the fundamental question of ontology.
"Nothing" (that is complete non-existence, no fundamental laws, no ST, no potential, nothing) has no existence. By definition, "nothing" is non-existence.
I seem to recall that Parmenides argued for a seemingly self-evident proposition that can perhaps be paraphrased 'nonexistence doesn't exist'. Once he had established (so he thought) that fundamental thesis, he interpreted it very strongly, to include not only the non-existence of everything, but extending it also to the non-existence of anything, to the denial of any and all occasions of non-existence whatsoever. That line of thinking led him to the decidedly non-self-evident conclusion that true being is totally unchanging, indivisible, and without any internal distinctions. He also argued that true being is spatially unbounded and what he called 'spherical', apparently meaning the same in all directions (isotropic).
He called this the 'way of truth', and his task then was to somehow derive from it what he called the 'way of opinion', namely our observed universe of change, flux and discrete bounded objects. Unfortunately the portion of his 'Poem' (he wrote in verse) where he explained this is no longer extant, so nobody is sure how he attempted that. It appears that the ancients themselves didn't find that part very convincing, which may be why it wasn't copied and preserved.
I'm reminded of Advaita Vedanta and its belief that true reality is Brahman, with the observed universe of Samsara being some kind of illusion. Our religious goal is said to be to see through the illusion and to merge back into the primordial oneness.
Of course, we may postulate "nothingness" and form hypotheses about its nature but this seems rather absurd as there is no basis from which to ground any assertions.
I agree with you that it's seemingly impossible for human beings, and perhaps any sentient beings including space aliens, to think about, experience or imagine absolute nothingness, the absence of anything and everything, as if it was some kind of something. Doing so leads to logical contradictions. So non-existence shouldn't be thought of as if it was a place, a dark empty void of some kind. Absolute non-existence seems to be more like a boundary concept, marking out the edges of being.
If fact I would contest that "nothingness" is immune to logical analysis because the rules of logic would not exist. Nor would causality or indeed any rules what so ever.
I agree. Physics and even logic are found here in the realm of being. They are aspects of being, however abstract. So if we try to depend on physics or on logic to explain why existence exists in the first place, we will be expecting what is to be explained to explain itself. Those kind of 'boot-strap' theories look like circular reasoning.
The other alternative is to appeal to something supposedly outside being to explain it. Theists use that strategy with their myths of divine creation. But that begs the question. Presumably the god who supposedly creates all other being exists. So we are still left with our original question, why does anything at all (including god) exist? This line of thinking seems to lead to infinite regress.
I'm inclined to think that human beings will never solve this mystery of mysteries.
