What is "Nothing"?

[Jim]

@T_aquaticus

Many scientists have proposed that the universe emerged from a quantum field or spacetime, not nothing.

Right. But as I understand it, there are those that equate a possible zero energy level of the universe (positive energy and negative energy levels balancing each other out) with nothing and claim that it is actual nothingness, i.e., not anything. And that is how they propose the initial event of the universe began from “nothing.”