Yeah, I'm not much of a fan of the idea of necessary opposites.
It's just not true in general: I don't need an "anti-chair" for the concept of a "chair" to make sense; I can compare a chair to the absence of a chair.
And likewise I don't believe that we need evil for the concept of "good" to make sense, or that whatever is least good we would necessarily call "evil" any more than there needs to be an opposite of an itch, and the most non-itchy I ever feel must be labelled as some discrete concept in itself.

Now, in the case of "nothing" and "something", this might seem to be a distinction without a difference. After all, in this case specifically, [absence of something] = [opposite of something] = nothing.

But the point is, if I find this logic dubious in most cases, I already have reason not to want to apply it here.

First you say it's non-sensical to ask if nothing exists, then you do just that. Also, nothing in the English dictionary does not say that nothing is kinda something. Your post is non-sensical. — Gregory

No, I think you have not read my post correctly -- which is understandable; the whole issue that I am talking about here is how the English language is breeding certain Epistomological misconceptions and misunderstandings, so it is necessarily difficult to discuss this issue.

So, let's be clear. At no point have I said that nothing exists is itself nonsensical. Indeed I have said several times now that there is nothing logically inconsistent in nothing existing whatsoever.
What's nonsensical is asking for a demonstration, or evidence of, nothing in our universe. It's treating "nothing" as some discrete entity that we could view and measure, and that makes no sense.

To the OP, why is 'nothing is still something'' wrong? — 3017amen

My point is that the reasoning behind "nothing is still something" is usually based on various misconceptions related the fact that in English, "logical negation" + "thing" has been contracted into a singular noun.
Statements like "Demonstrate me a nothing" or "Show me that nothing can exist" are nonsensical statements, that can't even be translated into languages that don't have this contraction.
So the burden is on believers of that statement to give some valid reason for thinking it to be true not based on this misapprehension.

Having said that, "thing" can mean different, well, things, and the statement is obviously true in some senses. For example, a state of nothingness is still a state; and the concept of "nothing existing" alludes to such a state.

But, importantly, "nothing is still something" is often used as a jumping off point for "solutions" to the problem of existence itself. For example, the implication is often that the concept of nothing existing is somehow self-inconsistent, and therefore a physical universe must necessarily exist. But again, once you appreciate the linguistic issues with "nothing" in English, there's no reason at all to think that "nothing existing" is self-inconsistent.

Nothing is better than heaven.
But a ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heaven. — Pfhorrest

Haha, that's brilliant. It's both funny and alludes to exactly the issue I'm talking about.

Does it even make sense to talk about everything being an illusion? If there is nothing outside of this universe, then what is the difference between a universe that's entirely an illusion and a universe that is entirely real?

My position is that "illusion" is not actually a property of physical things, it's a relative property of hypotheses. The hypothesis that I am a human living in the year 2020 in a spacetime universe is the best one I have right now, and so I call it "real" and all other explanations "illusions".
But if I get introduced to some "Zion" outside of this world which is actually the Matrix, then I might come up with a better hypothesis to explain the totality of my experiences, and the idea that I'm a 2020 earthling might then become the "illusion".

I've recorded my dreams for much of my adult life.

In terms of the OP hypothesis, it's interesting that my dreams often take place in familiar places, and furthermore, I seem to remember this better during the dream. e.g. "Awesome, I'm in that really cool city; I should go to the north end of this city where there is that giant cathedral on a hill" then waking and realizing the city only exists in my dreams and the cathedral was a past dream.

Sadly, this familiarity of certain places is the only concrete information I have of a dream "reality". Versus copious information to suggest it is just a bunch of hallucinations based on my memories. It's pretty clear which hypothesis gets Occam's razored.